NFL free agency has laid bare just how bad the Eagles will be in 2021. They need to embrace a rebuild. | David Murphy

The Eagles are going to be a bad football team, aren’t they? Like, really bad. The kind of bad we aren’t used to seeing on a football field here in Philadelphia. I’m talking a decline-the-penalty-and-punt, for-who-for-what, oh-no-the-quarterback-is-playing-air-guitar kind of bad. Bad like steamed brussels sprouts, or cold Spaghetti-O’s, or a politician’s cheesesteak. Bad like the last season of Game of Thrones, except with 16 episodes lasting three hours each.

If you’re like me, this wasn’t a scenario you’d previously contemplated. Sure, they traded away a quarterback after mortgaging the future for him, and they fired a coach after winning a Super Bowl with him, and they hired a coach who hadn’t even bothered to consider the possibility of interviews before scheduling his vacation. Still, these were the Eagles. Say what you will about Jeffrey Lurie, but his organization is going on two decades now of operating with a basic degree of competence. Only three times in his last 20 season of ownership have the Eagles failed to win at least seven games. They’ve been mediocre more often than they’ve been good, but they’ve been good way more than they’ve been bad. And they’ve never been terrible. At least, not the brand of terrible that could be in store this season.

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The realization has occurred to me over the last 48 hours as I’ve watched the NFL’s labor market exploded in its annual bloom. The Chiefs addressed their Super Bowl meltdown by signing guard Joe Thuney. The Titans added two edge rushers and an offensive tackle. The Patriots added everybody else. The Eagles? They tried to trade Zach Ertz. And they will presumably continue trying.

Silence is not itself an indication that things are awry. There are plenty of teams who will sign plenty of players and have plenty of nothing to show for it. The free-agent talent pool consists largely of the too old, the too injured, the ill-fitting, the under-performing, the scheme-dependent, the overvalued. Free agency is not where championships are won. Rather, it is a place where championship hopefuls fill holes.

The Eagles? They’ve got holes. At last check, they had no safeties, no linebackers, and no wide receivers. Their one cornerback might be on the verge of disappearing the way even great cornerbacks do. They have three offensive linemen who are recovering from significant injuries. One of them isn’t even good when healthy. Yes, they’ve got holes. And it is becoming increasingly clear that they aren’t going to fill them.

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Oh, they’ll sign some players. Come training camp, there will be names on the depth chart. But unless they go 10-for-10 in the draft -- after barely going 10-for-the-decade -- this team does not have a bankable path to being better than it was. The quarterback might win them some games with his feet. The division might win them some games by default. But it’s just as likely that 2021 is the year the roster completely implodes.

Think about the worst-case scenario. Darius Slay continues on his downward trajectory, his body simply incapable of doing the things it once did. Lane Johnson and Brandon Brooks fail to return to their previous levels of performance thanks to their injuries. Andre Dillard is just as unimpressive as he was before tearing his biceps. Now, which of those hypothetical seems unrealistic?

That’s it. That’s all it will take. If even three of those four things happen, the hubcaps are rolling all over the interstate. Look at it that way, and maybe you’ll see what was on Lurie’s mind when he struck a rebuilding tone in his year-end press conference. Perhaps the Eagles are well aware of just how bad they could be.

If you’re a fan, you should hope that Lurie and Howie Roseman really do have such self-awareness. That is, unless you’ve always wanted to be a fan of the Dolphins or the Lions. The Eagles are well past the point of turning themselves around in one offseason. Which is why they should be approaching the draft, trade and free-agent markets with an eye toward the future. Kyle Pitts, Jamar Chase, Devonta Smith are good players with the sort of playmaking skill sets that this Eagles offense has long lacked. But what the Eagles need most is a new foundation of bedrock.

Premium talent at premium positions. That is where championship teams create the most value on their roster. Beyond quarterback, the two most premium positions are tackle and cornerback. Those are the players who almost never reach free agency. Those are the players who rarely get traded. And if the Eagles find themselves in position to draft one, they should absolutely do it.

This year’s draft features three potential franchise-makers in quarterback Trevor Lawrence, tackle Penei Sewell, and cornerback Patrick Surtain. There are other potential game-changers, but the Eagles need a player that changes the decade. They need the next Lane Johnson, the next Fletcher Cox. They need a run on players like they had between 2010-13, when they also added Brandon Graham and Jason Kelce.

The Eagles’ problem is those four players are still the best they have to offer, and they will be stuck in this rut until they find the next generation. When you look at this roster, that is what you see: a team that is almost certain to get worse before it gets better. Rebuilding is neither a viable nor a necessary strategy in today’s NFL. It’s a product of repeated failure, and it forces itself upon you.

The Eagles are there, and if they are not careful, they will struggle to get out. The important question isn’t, “How bad are the Eagles going to be?” It’s, “How long is it going to last?”