The Philadelphia Eagles have spent the last few months locking up their defensive core, and the person who started that chain reaction might have given the front office a lesson in how to talk about money.
Zack Baun arrived last season as a low-key free agent signing and played well enough that the Eagles gave him a real extension. But when he sat down with general manager Howie Roseman to discuss numbers, Baun came with a pretty direct framing.
“You don’t pay me for what I did, you pay me for what I’m going to do,” Baun told Roseman.
It’s the kind of line that sounds like either a veteran closing a deal or a guy who watches a lot of sports movies. Either way, it worked. Baun took a big step forward in 2024 and the Eagles rewarded him accordingly. The team has not confirmed exact terms beyond the standard reports, but the message itself is interesting — especially coming from a player who wasn’t a household name a year ago.
Baun’s extension set the table for the bigger one: Jalen Carter. The defensive tackle signed a deal that makes him the highest-paid player at his position in the league, leapfrogging Jeffery Simmons of the Titans. Roseman admitted the timeline on Carter’s extension dragged longer than expected, mostly because both sides were waiting for the market to move.
Why Carter’s Deal Took So Long
Roseman said the Eagles entered the offseason wanting to extend both Carter and Jordan Davis. They wanted to keep the defensive line room strong — not just the stars, but guys like Moro Ojomo, who Roseman called an unbelievable player and person, and Byron Young, who took real steps in Year 2.
“Some of the reasons that it got to this point were just because we were trying to figure out the market,” Roseman said. “From his perspective, he was trying to figure out the market; there hadn’t been a big jump in the market. We like to do contracts in March and April, obviously, get that situated before we go into the draft, before we go into our summer.”
The hold-up wasn’t about a disagreement on Carter’s talent. It was about waiting for the domino to fall. Once Simmons signed with Tennessee, the Eagles had a real number to beat, and they did.
Roseman likes to get extensions done early — March or April — so the team knows its cap situation before the draft. That didn’t happen this year, but the Eagles got there eventually. Carter is now locked in as the anchor of a defensive line that could be the best in the NFC East for the next half-decade.
Baun, meanwhile, gave Roseman a line he probably won’t forget. Whether that changes how the GM thinks about future negotiations is anyone’s guess. But for one afternoon in the Eagles facility, the player told the front office exactly how to sell itself on the next contract.
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