NFC East Notes: Cowboys, Eagles, Redskins

Cowboys

Eagles

As their division-rival Cowboys try to figure out how to fit a star quarterback salary into their cap, the Eagles already have their extension for QB Carson Wentz finalized. Wentz went from four years of never counting more than $8.3 million against the cap to counting $18.65 million against Philadelphia’s cap last season. His cap hit will jump north of $30 million in 2020, which makes it easy to understand why Cowboys executives have said they want to be cautious about hampering their cap. But Eagles VP of football administration Jake Rosenberg says Wentz’s deal hasn’t necessarily hampered the team. 

“I don’t know if it’s hampered us. We talked about the planning side of things, I mean we were planning for this for a long time as far as Carson’s contract,” Rosenberg said via 94 WIP’s Eliot Shorr-Parks. “We had planned from a negation standpoint, a structure standpoint, and from a team-building perspective we were also planning for it and understood what it meant to have a quarterback on a market-adjusted deal rather than a rookie deal. I think within the system, within the CBA and the way the cap is managed, you do have flexibility and you have the ability to structure deals in different ways and be creative, and that is really the challenge.

“I think that is one of the best things about the task that we all have every day. You have this salary cap, you have this fixed number and you are just trying to allocate that in the way you think gives you the best chance of winning games, and winning a championship. I don’t think you would say ‘A, B and C are different as a result of us having a quarterback that is no longer on a rookie deal, I think that is our job, is to figure it out. Howie says it all time — ‘Just figure it out’. It is not enough to just throw up your hands and say we have a problem here. No, what is the solution, let’s figure it out and let’s move on.”

Redskins

Before the Redskins zeroed in on DE Chase Young with the No. 2 overall pick, there were some rumors former Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa was in play for the team fueled by HC Ron Rivera‘s announcement at the Combine that the team planned to host Tagovailoa on a pre-draft visit. While that would have been bad news for Washington’s 2019 first-round pick, QB Dwayne Haskins, he wasn’t worried. 

“Throughout the whole process Ron was just telling me to trust him,” Haskins said via NBC Sports’ JP Finlay. “I did so it worked out.”

While there were reports last year that the Redskins’ coaching staff didn’t really want Haskins and were instead saddled with him after team owner Daniel Snyder overruled them, Haskins says this year he feels like he has a lot more support. 

“I feel really confident having guys that believe in me,” Haskins said. “I think I’m going to have a good year this year.”