The Eagles have 18 free agents set to hit the open market. How different will the 2023 roster look?

The NFL’s new league year is set to begin at 4 p.m. Wednesday. At that time, free agents can sign deals with new teams, while clubs can officially process agreed-upon trades.

But the real action begins at noon Monday, when the NFL’s legal tampering period kicks off. For roughly two days leading into the new league year, teams can negotiate with unrestricted free agents and their representation.

After falling short to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII, the Eagles face a long road ahead if they aspire to repeat as conference champions. Over the next several weeks and months, the roster will look much different compared to the version that represented the franchise in its latest Super Bowl appearance.

“It’s not like we wake up the day after the Super Bowl and we say, ‘Oh, man now we have to go figure out the team,’” general manager Howie Roseman said at the NFL scouting combine. “This is what we’ve been doing. We have been doing it during the season, in the offseason. I wake up every morning thinking about this football team, and I go to bed every night thinking about this football team. It’s constant communication about some of the things we are going to do.”

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This past week, veteran defensive end Brandon Graham agreed to terms on a one-year contract extension with the team. But there’s plenty of work to be done. The Eagles have a whopping 18 pending free agents set to hit the open market, including:

This list includes 11 starters, including seven defensive starters (Cox, Hargrave, Edwards, White, Bradberry, Epps, Gardner-Johnson).

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The Eagles currently have around $6.6 million in cap space, according to Over The Cap, which ranks 24th in the NFL. They can create more flexibility and double their amount of cap space by restructuring Lane Johnson’s contract, a practice they’ve repeatedly done in recent years.

The Eagles, on Friday, also granted cornerback Darius Slay permission to find a trade partner. If Slay, 32, is seeking new money on a restructured contract, he could find a team with more financial flexibility by surveying the market. The Eagles could clear about $3.7 million in cap space by trading Slay before June 1, according to Over The Cap. If he’s traded after June 1, he’d clear $12.3 million in cap space next year. However, if he remains on the team and his base salary is restructured into a signing bonus, the Eagles could create up to $17.5 million in cap space.

“We’re going to prioritize the things that are important to us, that we build our team on,” Roseman said. “We’re going to make sure those areas are strong. Are we going to get all the free agents back? We’re just not. We’re not capable of getting all those guys back. But we also understand we’re in a good situation in terms of picks that we have going forward.

“We have a lot of guys under contract, not only for this year, but going forward. We’re not going to make excuses for the position we’re in.”

Aside from free agency, the Eagles also have six picks in the upcoming NFL draft, including four selections inside the top 100, and two first-rounders (Nos. 10 and 31). The offseason will be a constant retooling process for Roseman as the front office attempts to keep the franchise in contender mode.

The hovering factor over this entire puzzle is quarterback Jalen Hurts, who is eligible to sign a contract extension for the first time in his career after three seasons. Roseman has indicated the Eagles want to keep the 24-year-old in Philadelphia for many years.

Hurts finished this past season as one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks. He completed 66.5% of his throws with 4,280 passing yards and 25 touchdowns. Hurts also rushed for 903 yards and 18 rushing touchdowns while he was named a finalist for NFL MVP.

“Tremendous respect for him as a player, as a person,” Roseman said of Hurts. “Tremendous respect for the people that work with him to do this, and you go through it in a way that you want to find a win-win solution.

“You want to find something that he feels really good about, and at the same time that we feel good about and surround him with good players. He knows that. He’s a smart guy. He understands that. That doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be a tremendous contract for him because he deserves that, too.”