2025 Free Agency Tracker & Roster Moves for the 2025 Season

[time2rock]

Thread created to track the roster moves that lead up to the season opener and those additional moves that are made while the season is progressing.  Like I did last season, I will update as transactions are announced:

MARCH 19, 2025:

Fred Johnson signs 1 yr contract with the Jaguars

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MARCH 17, 2025:

Eagles sign LB Azeez Ojulari to 1 yr, $4M contract (*counts in compensatory pick formula likely at the 7th rd level, which should cancel out the 6th rd pick we would have gotten for Rodgers' departure) 

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MARCH 14, 2025:

Eagles sign LS Charley Hughlett to 1 yr, $1.422M contract ($467.5K guaranteed) (*does not qualify for the compensatory pick formula)

Eagles sign TE Kylen Granson to 1 yr contract (financial details not reported yet)

Eagles sign KR/PR Avery Williams to 1 yr contract (financial details not reported yet)

Eagles sign LB Patrick Johnson to 1 yr contract (financial details not reported yet)

Mekhi Becton signs 2 yr contract with the Chargers (financial details not reported yet)

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MARCH 13, 2025:

Eagles sign EDGE Joshua Uche to 1 yr, $1.75M contract ($750K guaranteed) (*does not qualify for the compensatory pick formula)

Eagles sign TE Harrison Bryant 1 yr contract (worth "up to $2M") (*does not qualify for the compensatory pick formula)

Eagles sign CB Adoree Jackson to 1 yr, $2.5M contract

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MARCH 12, 2025:

Kenny Gainwell signs 1 yr, $1.79M contract with the Steelers

Darius Slay signs 1 yr, $10M (fully guaranteed) contract with the Steelers

Eagles sign LB/FB Ben VanSumeren to new 1 yr contract

Eagles sign RB AJ Dillon (financial details not reported yet)

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MARCH 11, 2025:

Eagles trade CJGJ (and 2026 6th rd pick) to the Texans for OG Kenyon Green and 2026 5th rd pick

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MARCH 10, 2025:

Milton Williams signs 4 yr, $104M ($63M guaranteed) contract with the Patriots

Isaiah Rodgers signs 2 yr, $15M ($8M guaranteed) contract with the Vikings

Josh Sweat signs 4 yr, $76.4M ($41M guaranteed) contract with the Cardinals

Kenny Pickett traded to the Browns for a 2025 5th and QB Dorian Thomson-Robinson

Oren Burks signs 2 yr, $5M contract with the Bengals

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MARCH 5, 2025:

Zach Baun signed to an extension (3 yr, $51M, $34M guaranteed)

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MARCH 4, 2025:

Bardberry to be released (post June 1 designation)

Agreed to terms on 2 year contract extension for Saquon Barkley through the 20289 season

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MARCH 3, 2025:

Slay to be released (post June 1 designation)

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FEBRUARY 18, 2025:

The Eagles signed 13 players to futures contracts:   

DB Tariq Castro-Fields: Castro-Fields (6-1, 197) spent a lot of the 2024 season on the Eagles’ practice squad. He was a 6th-round pick out of Penn State in 2022, taken by the 49ers. Castro-Fields actually played in 10 games with 1 start for the Commanders in 2022 and 2023 and in 2024 played in 2 games with the Carolina Panthers. In his NFL career, Castro-Fields has played 27 snaps on defense and 109 on special teams. He has not appeared in a game for the Eagles.

WR Elijah Cooks: Cooks (6-4, 215) went undrafted out of San Jose State in 2023. He was with the Jaguars and played in 11 games over two seasons. He had 3 catches for 38 yards in those games. Cooks began his college career at Nevada but in his one year at San Jose State had 69 catches for 1,076 yards and 10 touchdowns. Cooks was with the Eagles’ practice squad for a week in January.

RB Tyrion Davis-Price: After being taken in the 3rd round of the 2022 draft out of LSU, Davis-Price played in just 7 games in 2022 and 2023 with the 49ers before getting cut. He spent this past season on the Eagles’ practice squad and played in one game. He had 3 carries for 7 yards on Dec. 29 against the Cowboys. In the preseason, Davis-Price had 22 carries for 118 yards.

LB Dallas Gant: Gant (6-2, 224) went undrafted out of Toledo in 2024 after previously playing at Ohio State. He was with the Vikings in training camp and spent the first couple months on their practice squad before getting released and joining the Eagles’ practice squad. Gant was elevated for two games — the final two of the regular season. He played 26 snaps on special teams.

WR Danny Gray: Another former 49ers pick, Gray was selected in the 3rd round out of SMU in 2022. Gray (6-0, 200) played in 13 games as a rookie and had 1 catch for 10 yards. Gray had a productive couple seasons at SMU as a receiver and return man. Gray has track speed; he ran a 4.33 at the combine.

DT Gabe Hall: The Eagles signed Hall (6-6, 295) as an undrafted free agent out of Baylor this season. He spent the entire year on the Eagles’ practice squad. Hall made some plays in training camp as a rookie and is worth taking a look at in Year 2.

DE K.J. Henry: The Commanders drafted Henry (6-4, 255) in the 5th round out of Clemson in the 2023 draft. In the last two years (with the Commanders, Bengals and Cowboys) Henry has played in 14 games with 3 starts and has 2 1/2 sacks. He has also played 144 special teams snaps. Henry has not played in a game for the Eagles.

LB Ochaun Mathis: The Rams drafted Mathis (6-5, 260) in the 6th round out of Nebraska in the 2023 draft. Mathis played in the Baltimore game in 2024 and had 9 special teams snaps. In his NFL career, Mathis has played in 14 games.

TE Nick Muse: The Eagles didn’t sign Muse (6-5, 252) to their practice squad until January. The Vikings selected him in the 7th round out of South Carolina in 2022. He played in 16 games over three seasons with the Vikings and had 1 catch for 22 yards.

DB Parry Nickerson: The Eagles kept the 30-year-old veteran around all season after a strong training camp. Nickerson has played in 30 games with 3 starts in his NFL career and was with Vic Fangio in Miami in 2023, playing five games for the Dolphins.

DB Andre’ Sam: Everyone knew it was Saquon Barkley and Cooper DeJean’s birthday on Super Bowl Sunday but it was also Sam’s birthday! Sam turned 26 as the Eagles beat the Chiefs. Sam played in one game this season against the Panthers; 12 special teams snaps.

OT Laekin Vakalahi: The Eagles had an international exemption for Vakalahi, who is from Australia. He was the 17th member of the practice squad all season and will have another exemption spot in 2025.

DB A.J. Woods: Woods (5-9, 186) went undrafted out of Pitt in 2024. He initially signed with the Commanders and signed with the Eagles’ practice squad in early September. He didn’t see any game action in 2024.

[Cheesteakitis]

I’m suprised DB Shon Stephens isn’t apart of this list or wasn’t on the practice squad. After mini camp tryouts with Pittsburgh and the Eagles he signed with us out of Farris State. Where he led the nation with 16 ints the previous 2 seasons. I read a report that him and Q really connected coming from small schools. Stephen’s is also the cousin of Joey Porter Jr.. The eagles released him at final cutdowns and I haven’t really heard anything on him since. 

[birdman#12]

I think it's natural to get sentimental and desirable after a Super Bowl victory to want to bring back everybody and keep the team together.  But this is the NFL and things have changed where GM's and coaches have to deal with the salary cap, contracts, free agency and the draft more than ever.

The psyche of today's players and the allure of huge contracts clouds the decision making of players.......when you're talking about the top 50 free agents, I don't know how many are driven strictly by money......they're all big money contracts.   Players consider money and play time opportunities....but how man consider the quality of the organization they're going to, the coaching situation, the talent on a team and the playoff possibilities.  And whether it's good for their family.  

Obviously I can't relate to being a pro football player.  But I wonder how different Barkleys production AND outlook would be had he signed with the Bears?  Or if Baun would have had the opportunities if he stayed with the saints?  Or if Becton went to a team that promised him that he's start right away?

I know the players association pushes the top players to get as much as possible.....to reset the market year after year.  I think the huge contracts and the guaranteed money has taken some of the desire to best or to win championships away.  Players say they have to "feed their family" which is a stupid statement that is just an excuse for greed.  Players will put themselves in lousy situations like bad organizations, bad teams and bad coaches to sign a huge contract, usually the biggest.

That brings me to the remarkable ability of Howie Roseman and the Eagles Pro and College scouting departments.  Even though we all want Baun, Williams, Becton and Sweat to come back, Roseman and the scouting departments had consistently filled this team with talent to be contenders year after year.,  We, as fans, think that some players are irreplaceable, but we lost Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox, DeAndre Swift, James Bradberry, and Hassan Reddick.....and the team got better.

[Crazy Legs]

Includes 6 draft picks by other organizations over the last 3 years and another 1/2 dozen UDFAs over the same period...low-hanging fruit...could alleviate need for some day 3 picks that could be bargaining-chips for day 1/2 strategy moves.

We probably only need to acquire a few DL/Edge players on days 1 and 2. Salary cap will probably limit what we can realistically accomplish short-term.

[Miami]

This will be a hard roster to make.

[Kz!]

Waiting for the Danny Gray breakout season, right @EagleVA? Look for Devonta Smith to have to slide into Jahan Dotson's role of the scantly-used third WR option as Gray develops.

[BayAreaLennie]

1 hour ago, Crazy Legs said:

Salary cap will probably limit what we can realistically accomplish short-term.

I'm not so sure about that.  It seems to me the Eagles are in as good a salary cap situation as they have been in for a while.

What really hurts a team salary cap-wise is dead money.  The way I think about it, there are two sources of dead money:

  1) Unplanned.  This is caused by bad signings where the player fails to live up to the contract, and therefore significant dead money hits the cap when the player is jettisoned from the roster.  This is the Carson Wentz type of dead money.

  2) Planned.  This is where the contract includes creative ways (e.g., void years at the end of the contract) to have the compensation counted against the cap in future years where the player will not be on the roster, but where the salary cap will be much higher so the hit is not as significant.  This is the Jason Kelce type of dead money.

Unplanned is obviously way worse that Planned because it is off-plan.

The Eagles had over $63M in dead cap space in every season from 2021 through last year (including significant dead cap hits from Wentz, Ertz, DeSean, Jeffery, Cox, Malik Jackson, Derek Barnett, Brandon Brooks, Hargrave, Seumalo, Reddick and Kelce), plenty of which was Unplanned.  Despite that, Howie was still able to add free agents like Barkley and Reddick.

Dead money should be down in 2025, though not insignificant (the major hits are leftover tails from Cox and Kelce and acceleration of a few automatically voided contracts (mostly Sweat's)), and then pretty significantly down thereafter.  There will be a few Unplanned hits (Bradberry, maybe Huff?) and a few Planned hits (Slay, maybe Lane?) but they're not huge, and other than that the horizon looks pretty clean other than long-term Planned hits.  Given that landscape, I will not be surprised if Howie finds enough flexibility to be at least mildly active in the free agent market.

I am happy to be educated otherwise if I am mis-interpreting the cap situation.

[brkmsn]

1 hour ago, Kz! said:

Waiting for the Danny Gray breakout season, right @EagleVA? Look for Devonta Smith to have to slide into Jahan Dotson's role of the scantly-used third WR option as Gray develops.

A bunch of the DBs on the defense had high praise for Danny Gray on the scout team. He has a lot of desirable traits and is very hard to cover. The only thing really holding him back as a pro is the catching. If he can fix something in that area before the regular season, he may be a gem. If he doesn't, he can continue to provide a valuable challenge to cover on the scout team. The latter may not be a role fans care about, but a well coached team needs guys like him to build/prepare a championship team. 

https://www.insidethebirds.com/15584-2-philadelphia-eagles-danny-gray/

[time2rock]

27 minutes ago, BayAreaLennie said:

I'm not so sure about that.  It seems to me the Eagles are in as good a salary cap situation as they have been in for a while.

What really hurts a team salary cap-wise is dead money.  The way I think about it, there are two sources of dead money:

  1) Unplanned.  This is caused by bad signings where the player fails to live up to the contract, and therefore significant dead money hits the cap when the player is jettisoned from the roster.  This is the Carson Wentz type of dead money.

  2) Planned.  This is where the contract includes creative ways (e.g., void years at the end of the contract) to have the compensation counted against the cap in future years where the player will not be on the roster, but where the salary cap will be much higher so the hit is not as significant.  This is the Jason Kelce type of dead money.

Unplanned is obviously way worse that Planned because it is off-plan.

The Eagles had over $63M in dead cap space in every season from 2021 through last year (including significant dead cap hits from Wentz, Ertz, DeSean, Jeffery, Cox, Malik Jackson, Derek Barnett, Brandon Brooks, Hargrave, Seumalo, Reddick and Kelce), plenty of which was Unplanned.  Despite that, Howie was still able to add free agents like Barkley and Reddick.

Dead money should be down in 2025, though not insignificant (the major hits are leftover tails from Cox and Kelce and acceleration of a few automatically voided contracts (mostly Sweat's)), and then pretty significantly down thereafter.  There will be a few Unplanned hits (Bradberry, maybe Huff?) and a few Planned hits (Slay, maybe Lane?) but they're not huge, and other than that the horizon looks pretty clean other than long-term Planned hits.  Given that landscape, I will not be surprised if Howie finds enough flexibility to be at least mildly active in the free agent market.

I am happy to be educated otherwise if I am mis-interpreting the cap situation.

Dead money hits to the 2025 cap:

[BayAreaLennie]

14 minutes ago, time2rock said:

Dead money hits to the 2025 cap:

Yep, exactly.  Down from the mid-$60Ms they have been at the last 4 years.  And nothing debilitating on the horizon.

[Lambo]

5 minutes ago, BayAreaLennie said:

Yep, exactly.  Down from the mid-$60Ms they have been at the last 4 years.  And nothing debilitating on the horizon.

You then have to add potential retirees Brandon Graham and Darius Slay.  Could potentially be dead money if they release Bradberry.

[time2rock]

15 minutes ago, BayAreaLennie said:

Yep, exactly.  Down from the mid-$60Ms they have been at the last 4 years.  And nothing debilitating on the horizon.

Shoot man even when we were in the mid 60s it didn’t stop Howie from making any moves that he wanted to.  When will people learn to not worry about the cap under Howie’s hand?!?

[Godfather]

4 hours ago, time2rock said:

Dead money hits to the 2025 cap:

This should be the last year for Kelce and Cox

[JohnB]

9 hours ago, birdman#12 said:

I think it's natural to get sentimental and desirable after a Super Bowl victory to want to bring back everybody and keep the team together.  But this is the NFL and things have changed where GM's and coaches have to deal with the salary cap, contracts, free agency and the draft more than ever.

The psyche of today's players and the allure of huge contracts clouds the decision making of players.......when you're talking about the top 50 free agents, I don't know how many are driven strictly by money......they're all big money contracts.   Players consider money and play time opportunities....but how man consider the quality of the organization they're going to, the coaching situation, the talent on a team and the playoff possibilities.  And whether it's good for their family.  

Obviously I can't relate to being a pro football player.  But I wonder how different Barkleys production AND outlook would be had he signed with the Bears?  Or if Baun would have had the opportunities if he stayed with the saints?  Or if Becton went to a team that promised him that he's start right away?

I know the players association pushes the top players to get as much as possible.....to reset the market year after year.  I think the huge contracts and the guaranteed money has taken some of the desire to best or to win championships away.  Players say they have to "feed their family" which is a stupid statement that is just an excuse for greed.  Players will put themselves in louse situations like bad organizations, bad teams and bad coaches to sign a huge contract, usually the biggest.

That brings me to the remarkable ability of Howie Roseman and the Eagles Pro and College scouting departments.  Even though we all want Baun, Williams, Becton and Sweat to come back, Roseman and the scouting departments had consistently filled this team with talent to be contenders year after year.,  We, as fans, think that some players are irreplaceable, but we lost Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox, DeAndre Swift, James Bradberry, and Hassan Reddick.....and the team got better.

great post and truthfully I see it both ways.  I guess because I'm insanely loyal I liked it better when the concept of a "journeyman" was like a gypsy. It just wasn't very common. I always wished the league would cap the position, instead of the team. On the flipside, the average player's career is over by the time they're 30, and you never know if you'll have a career ending injury, or get paralyzed or something, so it makes sense that these players want to chase the money. You also don't want to encourage a situation where the owners make all the money and the players are just pawns, and the next thing you know you have a 1919 Chicago Black Sox situation (okay, that's getting a little far-fetched, but you get the idea). 

[JohnB]

5 hours ago, time2rock said:

Dead money hits to the 2025 cap:

Is this why Cox and Kelce still hang around the team/complex? 

[time2rock]

Nick Gates released.

https://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/news/eagles-release-nick-gates

[mattwill]

17 hours ago, time2rock said:

Dead money hits to the 2025 cap:

 

17 hours ago, BayAreaLennie said:

Yep, exactly.  Down from the mid-$60Ms they have been at the last 4 years.  And nothing debilitating on the horizon.

And the Sweat, Becton and Baun dead money goes away if they are re-signed.  I expect Sweat will not be re-signed, but that Becton and Baun will be. 

[Crazy Legs]

What's referred to above is when a player turns his salary into a signing bonus spread out over one or more voided years.

If only that were completley true...I think it would somehow be incorporated into ongoing cap figures.

Any opinions?

[NYEagle]

My opinion is that the Eagles manage the cap better than anyone....ESPECIALLY having won 2 Super Bowls while remaining competitive.  Think about it, it's hard to manage the salary cap, it's almost impossible when you have multiple Pro Bowlers and All Pros across the team!  

When it comes to the cap, it's a fun exercise to play on here but I'll never worry about it while Howie and his TEAM of people that know the cap inside and out are managing it.  Yes, we can't sign/keep everyone.....we are definitely in my opinion going to lose Sweat and Williams.  Maybe lose Becton and definitely keep Baun....but my god, the fact that they still will have close to 50 million in cap room, while having locked in Hurts, Lane, Jordan, Dickerson, AJ, Devonta is amazing.  They do have some big time extensions coming up with Cam and the defensive side of the ball but just enjoy this!

Been a fan since '79, f the Reid years constantly falling short, this truly is the golden age of the Philadelphia Eagles. 

[JamesK]

I never knew that retired players like Cox & Kelce represent dead cap space.   That seems like something that should be changed.  They're retired.  Why should their contracts count against the cap?

[Cochis_Calhoun]

5 minutes ago, JamesK said:

I never knew that retired players like Cox & Kelce represent dead cap space.   That seems like something that should be changed.  They're retired.  Why should their contracts count against the cap?

Because we structured their contracts with void years to pro rate bonuses as long as possible, they've been paid the money, that has to hit the cap calculations at some point. dead cap like Kelce, Cox and pretty soon Slay and Bradberry is very much the Eagles authoring their own misfortune.

[birdman#12]

I can see Davis-Price, Shipley and a draft choice battling for the backup role if the eagles don't bring Gainwell back.

And Howie and the pro scouting department have a good record of identifying underutilized and under the radar players who have fell out of favor or coming back from injury or being cap casualties.

The only guy I think the Eagles absolutely must sign is Baun.  Williams, Becton, Burks and Sweat can be replaced with a free agent on a one year deal or a a prove it deal along with some draft picks.

[Kz!]

On 2/18/2025 at 3:36 PM, brkmsn said:

A bunch of the DBs on the defense had high praise for Danny Gray on the scout team. He has a lot of desirable traits and is very hard to cover. The only thing really holding him back as a pro is the catching. If he can fix something in that area before the regular season, he may be a gem. If he doesn't, he can continue to provide a valuable challenge to cover on the scout team. The latter may not be a role fans care about, but a well coached team needs guys like him to build/prepare a championship team. 

https://www.insidethebirds.com/15584-2-philadelphia-eagles-danny-gray/

Yeah, I saw that he got some praise for scout team stuff, I was mostly just ribbing EagleVA. Conventional wisdom would suggest the odds are stacked against him, though, considering he was quickly cut after being selected in the third round from a WR needy team that also happen to have one of the better front offices in the league. In other words, I'm not holding my breath waiting for him to develop into a decent player for us, especially since we don't even utilize our third receiver much less ever get to the bottom of the depth chart guys.

[brkmsn]

5 hours ago, Kz! said:

Yeah, I saw that he got some praise for scout team stuff, I was mostly just ribbing EagleVA.

Don't worry, I picked that up. 

I don't blame EagleVA for being high on Gray's potential. I just don't know why he puts all his eggs in that basket and then undervalues the two studs we have at WR and the 1 we have at RB. It's just weird. I guess the first rule of not being a "group thinker" is you have to come up with thoughts that nobody else in the world has. Once somebody else agrees, that forms a group. 

[Aerolithe_Lion]

Howie better nail this offseason if he wants to keep his job