Joe Banner: No one is going to offer the Eagles a Matthew Stafford-like deal for Carson Wentz

Former Eagles president Joe Banner does a weekly Q&A with Inquirer pro football writer Paul Domowitch. This week, the two discuss the status of the Carson Wentz trade saga; whether the Eagles would be better served waiting a couple of weeks to deal him; why Todd Bowles wasn’t a serious candidate for the Eagles’ head coaching job; the (in)significance of the NFL’s low Super Bowl TV ratings; and the impact of this season on Roger Goodell’s legacy:

Domo: In your opinion, what’s driving the Carson Wentz trade situation more – his desire to get out of Philadelphia, or the Eagles’ desire to move on from him?

JB: I always rejected the narrative that they hired a new head coach to “fix” Wentz. So when they hired the quarterbacks coach (Brian Johnson) who already knew Jalen Hurts, it seemed pretty obvious to me that if there was anything to read in the hires, it was not good for Wentz.

But this is a mutual thing. Carson definitely wants to play someplace else. But the Eagles also have clearly decided that the benefits of having him versus the cost of having him, based on (trade) compensation that they had hoped for, that they would be better off without him.

Which should tell the marketplace that they don’t believe he can be who he was in 2017 again. If they did, that would be the guy they’d want. So they’re telling the marketplace that they don’t think he can be who he was. So now you have to find a team that believes the opposite, even though it doesn’t know him as well as the Eagles do. Which, by the way, is why it’s no coincidence that the two teams with the most interest – Chicago and Indianapolis – both have former Eagles coaches who were on the staff when Carson had his best season. Each of them has enough confidence -- or arrogance -- time will tell, to believe they can get that out of them again.

I can tell you this back from my days there, and I think it’s very smart even though I know it frustrates the fans at times. You have to be consistent in what you’re doing with respect to negotiating contracts and trading and not trading players. The Eagles are very aware of the message that would be sent if Wentz could get that kind of contract, and then by just being disgruntled, get himself traded. It’s really terrible for the management of your roster and your cap long-term.

So, to think that they’re trading Wentz just because he wants to be traded, I just don’t think it reflects the MO of the team. I think it’s clear that they also decided that in light of what’s gone on recently, that it’s better to move forward in a different direction.

Domo: True or false: The longer this drags on, the less chance there is the Eagles are going to get anything of significance for Wentz?

JB: There’s no doubt they’re trying to move him, and there’s no doubt that if they had gotten an offer that they were satisfied with, they would have accepted it.

So I think we can say, without being inside the building, that no one has jumped up and made them a really significant Matthew Stafford-like offer. Or anything close to that. Now, the fact that they appear to have more than one team interested does give them a chance to at least walk away with solid compensation. But I think the market is telling us that the possibility of them walking away with something really significant, like, say, two No. 1s, or two No. 1s and other picks, or two No. 1s and a quality starter, is really unlikely to happen.

But I don’t think that would necessarily represent a failure. If they get out of the contract and they can eat the miscellaneous charges, it will improve their (salary cap) position for the future quite significantly. It will improve the cap room they have in 2022 by over $22 million.

Just remember, the top-paid players in the league who aren’t quarterbacks, the (Joey) Bosas, the Khalil Macks, the Aaron Donalds, they make $25 million a year. So if the Eagles get some modest compensation and the freedom from the cap costs, that’s actually significant.

Now, the risk of all this is you don’t know if you have a quarterback going forward who can lead you to where you’re trying to go. And you never want to be in that position.

» READ MORE: Why is it taking so long for the Eagles to trade Carson Wentz?

Domo: Is there any urgency to get a trade done sooner rather than later? Or can the Eagles wait a few weeks and see if the market for Wentz changes?

JB: This is the huge challenge that Howie and the organization have. On the one hand, as you wait, it continues to look more and more like you didn’t get a great offer. Which makes bidding teams think they can get him cheap. That’s the bad thing.

The flip side is that there are other teams out there that have indicated they have quarterbacks that they’re willing to move on from. Like a Derek Carr (Raiders). Like a (Jimmy) Garoppolo (49ers). Like a Cam Newton (Patriots). So those teams aren’t going to be in the market for a quarterback until they know whether they’re going to keep their guy or whether they’re going to move their guy.

My attitude right now if I was Howie would be that if I got an offer that I considered solid at this point – not great, but solid -- I think it would be worth taking versus the risk of waiting. But if I was sitting there feeling, “Boy, these are really crappy offers and I don’t see how they can get much worse,” then I would take the risk of waiting at least another couple of weeks to see what happens with some of these other teams.

Domo: Trevor Lawrence, who almost certainly is going to be the first pick in the draft, worked out for NFL teams Friday at Clemson. There were more than a dozen teams there, including the Eagles. It seems very unlikely that they have the wherewithal to trade up from No. 6 to No. 1. You’ve been through this. Were they just doing their due diligence?

JB: They were. And while I haven’t done much work on the draft, I also understand that one of the receivers that Lawrence threw to (Clemson teammate Cornell Powell) is fairly highly rated. Not in the top, top tier. Not somebody they’d consider at No. 6. But maybe on Day 2. It could be that getting a look at him was as high or a higher priority for them than doing due diligence on Lawrence.

Domo: Right now, Jalen Hurts would seem to be the likely season-opening starter next September. That said, I wouldn’t be totally shocked to see them use that sixth overall pick, or a second-round pick, on another quarterback. Your thoughts?

JB: There’s no team in the league that understands the importance of having a top-tier quarterback or is more aggressive in doing what it takes to get one than the Eagles. I’m not saying they always get it right – they obviously don’t -- but they know you can’t win without a franchise quarterback. Now, we don’t know what they think of Hurts. We don’t know what they think of these other quarterbacks that may be available to them once they move Wentz, like Justin Fields or Zach Wilson or Kyle Trask, who was coached by their new quarterbacks coach (at Florida).

But I’ll tell you this. If there’s a quarterback that they think is available who is a top-tier quarterback, don’t be shocked if they make that move. I’m not predicting it. I think it’s less likely than likely. But I think it’s definitely possible that if there is somebody they’re excited about, like they were about Wentz, that we could see a quarterback move from them.

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Domo: You’ve been a Todd Bowles advocate for a long time. You tweeted this week that Todd is the minority coach that people should be upset about not getting a head-coaching position rather than Eric Bieniemy. Why did so many people in the media focus on Bieniemy being overlooked rather than more experienced minority candidates like Bowles and Marvin Lewis?

JB: I don’t mean this as a negative toward Eric, who I actually know a little bit and like. Don’t know him well enough to tell you how good of a head coach he’d be. His resume reads well, especially compared to some of the other people who have been recently hired. But it’s not always a racial thing. Brad Childress was on Andy (Reid)’s staff for a number of years before he got a head-coaching opportunity. So it’s not like Eric is in a unique situation.

As we’ve discussed before, the lack of minority coaches in the league absolutely is an issue that needs to be addressed. I actually thought we saw tremendous progress this year, even though it wasn’t reflected in the head-coaching hires.

But if I’m isolating my conversation about head coaches in the NFL and minority hirings and the group of available coaches right now, I’d put Todd at the top of the list. And I’d put Marvin Lewis second. And not just because they’re experienced. You go down the list of things you’re looking for in a head coach -- a leader, somebody who is going to manage a staff and hire a staff effectively, someone who is very detail-oriented, somebody who is a great teacher, someone my players are going to respect and follow because he has a clear vision – they embody all of that.

I know Todd very well. He is all of those things. So why didn’t he succeed with the Jets? There were two reasons. One, I don’t think he had the right general manager to build a team around him. And second, to be completely fair, he didn’t do a good job of hiring his offensive staff. But I’d be completely shocked if Todd didn’t learn from that and has a fantastic plan on how to go forward.

It would be very disappointing if he doesn’t get a second chance to be a head coach in this league. Because there is real reason to believe he can be very successful.

Domo: Todd had a virtual interview with Jeff and Howie for the Eagles’ job. It doesn’t appear that he was a serious candidate. Why do you think that was? Because Jeff wanted an offensive coach? Because he wanted a younger coach?

JB: Both of those things, for sure. I think he preferred an offensive coach, and I think he preferred a younger coach. I don’t think he went into it with that as absolute rules. But they were pretty strong preferences. And the Jets experience certainly hurt him and there were questions that I’m sure they discussed about what happened there. It’s certainly possible they walked away not totally satisfied with the ideas he had for overcoming those problems.

But I do think Todd went into the Eagles interview with a fairly large disadvantage relating to the side of the ball he coaches and the fact that he had a previous chance as a head coach and didn’t thrive.

Domo: Sunday’s Super Bowl generated just 96.4 million viewers across both live television and streaming services. It was the least-watched Super Bowl since 2006 despite a marquee quarterback matchup. Should the league be concerned? Or are TV ratings not as important as they were 10 years ago?

JB: (The television ratings) are not as important as they once were, which is far different than saying they aren’t important. It’s too early to know if it’s the tip of the iceberg on a problem or an aberration. Obviously, it seemed like a great matchup. But it became fairly lopsided pretty quickly. That can affect those things.

The NFL has to look at it very carefully and thoroughly and ask themselves whether there is something they should be doing about it or whether it is indeed an aberration.

It won’t have any kind of short-term financial impact on the league. The NFL, between network deals and streaming deals, is going to have a very significant increase in revenue from their media rights. But long term, it’s incredibly important to keep the popularity of the sport where it’s been and hopefully even grow it.

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Domo: CNBC reported this week that the league wants to finalize the framework of its new TV deals -- the ESPN deal expires at the end of the 2021 season, the others after 2022 -- before it sets the 2021 salary cap next month. Is there enough time to do that? And what would be the specific benefit?

JB: It’s possible to do it, assuming they’ve already been in extensive conversations with the networks. And I do think that’s the case. I’m not sure they’ve been in hard-core discussions. But I definitely think they’ve been talking and have been trying to move this forward and push it across the finish line.

Because of the league’s COVID-related revenue losses this season, the cap is scheduled to drop for the first time in 10 years. It’s disruptive for the cap to go down. It’s not good for anybody in the league. Not good for the league. Not good for the owners. Not good for the players. They don’t need the new TV deals to be finalized to adjust the cap. They can voluntarily do that in anticipation of future revenues. This is oversimplifying it, but they can literally say we’re going to take $10 million out of the 2022 cap and move it to 2021. The TV deals will follow and the revenue will follow and all of it will get reconciled over a couple of years.

So I didn’t take the (CNBC) report in terms of the cause and effect of trying to get a deal done quickly as all that credible. But I do think they’re motivated to get those deals done as soon as they can and quantify them. And if they want to flatten out the drop in the cap, they could use the anticipated revenue just as easily as the actual confirmed revenues

Domo: It was amazing last week to see the public lovefest between Roger Goodell and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith at the Super Bowl. I mean, there was a time when the two of them couldn’t even be in the same room together. Ten years ago, the owners locked the players out for nearly six months before the two sides finally agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement. Surprised to see how much the Smith-Goodell relationship has changed?

JB: I think it reflected the fact that they presume they’ve negotiated against each other for the last time. Some of the positioning and some of the conflict we would see publicly I always viewed as positioning for the negotiation or looking the way they needed to look for the people they were representing. But I think they both feel like, you know what, at least one of us and maybe both of us aren’t still going to be here nine or 10 years from now when the next deal will be negotiated. It probably takes a lot of the edge off of the relationship. But it was good to see. And it’s better for the league and the players for there to be a constructive relationship between them.

Domo: Goodell has had his ups and downs as the league’s commissioner. But the league’s ability to navigate the pandemic and play this season will almost certainly be remembered as his biggest accomplishment. He obviously didn’t do it alone. But how has this season impacted his legacy?

JB: Within the league and within the owners, and even if the owners just view the economics of the progress they’ve made with him as commissioner, he deserves a lot of credit for that. And I think what they did this year, led by him on the league side and D. (Smith) on the players’ side, is an incredible accomplishment. I mean they – and I think this deserves more coverage – they actually bet on the players being able to do the right thing with the right guidance and with the right general and local motivations to do the right thing. And I don’t think this happens if the players aren’t in a mindset of, we are really, really committed to this and we’re going to make it happen.

It’s hard to describe to somebody on the outside how linked everybody is on the inside. Even when there’s some tension, because of the nature of team sports and the need for everybody to be pulling in the same direction, it’s a great credit to everybody involved in putting together the plan.

I don’t know of anyone, including myself, who thought they were going to be able to get through the season with virtually no upsetness. But they crowned a champion and everybody basically had an equal chance to get it. I think that’s incredible.

Domo: The league has the option to add a 17th regular-season game at some point, and it appears they will exercise that option next season. That is expected to be accompanied by a reduction of the preseason from four games to either three or two. Your thoughts?

JB: I think they want to get down to two preseason games. I don’t know whether they do that all at once or go to three and then two. Three is a little bit complicated scheduling-wise just because of the home-and-away-game inequity and the wear and tear of travel in the preseason.

But I think soon, if not this year, we see 17 regular-season games and two preseason games. And I do think we also see, much to the chagrin of the league’s coaches, further relaxing of the intensity of the offseason.