Eagles Mailbag: Cherry Picking From Super Bowl Rosters

I'm back from the Senior Bowl and have a few weeks before flying to Indy for the combine, so this is a relatively slow time ... at least for the Eagles. 

But there are still two teams playing this weekend in a little game called the Super Bowl. Hopefully, it'll be a good one in Houston. 

Let's start this mailbag there: 

This is fun. I like this. Drew tweeted back that this question is without salary cap ramifications, so those are the parameters. 

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I'll take Patrick Chung, Eric Rowe and Dion Lewis ... just kidding. 

Part of me is tempted to take one of the quarterbacks. If this was a one-year only thing, clearly Matt Ryan and Tom Brady would give the Eagles the best chance to play for a title. And Ryan would probably be the guy, just because Julio Jones is coming either way. But I'm not going to take a quarterback - it almost feels like cheating and this is Carson Wentz's team. I want to give him some help. 

For that reason, Julio is the no-brainer. I think he's the best receiver in the NFL and receiver is clearly a great position of need. 

Another position of need? Cornerback. So I'm taking the best one in this game. Come on over, Malcolm Butler. (I thought about Desmond Trufant but stuck with Butler because Trufant is injured.) 

For the last spot, I thought hard about Vic Beasley and even Gronk, but I'm going with Devonta Freeman. I think he could be a real difference-maker and the Eagles desperately need a dynamic running back. 

Jones, Butler, Freeman. Not bad. 

I don't think this would happen for a couple reasons. First, I'm not sure how valuable Sproles would be for another team. He's a great third-down back and return man, but he'll be 34 during the season and has already said he's retiring after the year. Will a team want to give up a draft pick for him? 

And then, do the Eagles really want to get rid of one of their biggest play-makers for a sixth- or seventh-round pick? The Eagles prided themselves on not giving up at the end of the 2016 season, so they're not going to give up on the 2017 season even after a slow start. I think Sproles finishes his final NFL season as an Eagle.  

Well, Lurie is the one who hired him, so ...

But I get your point. A lot of the decisions Lurie has made since firing Andy Reid have been questionable. The Chip Kelly hire, at the time, made sense. He was the hottest candidate on the market. But then the decision to hand over personnel power to a guy with one season of NFL experience was a bad one, especially with the idea that it would force him in a position to sink or swim. 

And then the decisions to put Howie Roseman back in power and to hire Doug Pederson looked questionable too, but it's too early to call. 

I'll say this about Lurie: I think he desperately wants to win. It's just that he doesn't know how to do it. 

It's worth asking. I'm among the people who think it would be wise to keep Kelce on the team in 2017 instead of cutting him to save $3.8 million in cap space. I know it's temping, but I think the team is better with him next year than without him - even for a cap hit of $6.2 million. 

I would start Kelce at center, where he wasn't as bad this season as you thought he was, and then plug in Isaac Seumalo at left guard. That, to me, is their best option on the line next season and it gives Wentz some semblance of continuity. 

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