News broke on Tuesday night that the Cowboys were releasing former Pro Bowl linebacker Jaylon Smith.
And if you haven’t noticed, the Eagles’ linebackers haven’t been great this season.
So we’ve seen plenty of “Should they? Shouldn’t they?” questions about the Eagles and Smith since ESPN’s Adam Schefter broke the news. (The team later confirmed it.)
But now there’s at least one report linking the Eagles and the former NFC East foe from Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
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Of course, not long after that tweet, NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo threw some cold water on the whole Smith-to-Philly idea.
But the Eagles’ reported interest at least makes some sense.
Smith, 26, was a second-round pick back in 2016 and after missing his rookie season because of a terrible knee injury suffered at Notre Dame, grew into a Pro Bowl player by 2019.
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Smith hasn’t played at that level the last couple years and early in this season, saw his playing time suffer. He played fewer than 50% of the Cowboys’ defensive snaps in two of four games in 2021.
The Cowboys still owe Smith the remainder of his $7.2 million salary this year but releasing him now gets them off the hook for 2022. His contract was guaranteed for injury next season so the Cowboys would have been stuck paying him if he got hurt this year.
So instead of continuing to gamble for a player who had lost his role defensively, the Cowboys just decided to release him.
Should the Eagles be interested? Well, Smith is probably a modest upgrade over the linebackers the Eagles have been trotting out on the field this season, but that’s a low bar. Eric Wilson, Alex Singleton and the rest have struggled.
That’s not to say that Smith would solve all the Eagles’ problems. He hasn’t been a very good player for Dallas in recent years. But he would still probably be an upgrade in Philly.
It makes plenty of sense for the Eagles to at least kick the tires on Smith. And it sounds like they are.
