By Peter Gleason
Now that the Super Bowl is over with the free agent market right around the corner in March, it’s time for the Eagles to address the elephant in the room:
Whether to restructure LeSean McCoy’s contract or throw him over the side as they did with DeSean Jackson last March.
McCoy has three years left on his contract with the Eagles, though only $1 million of it is guaranteed. Because the salary-cap impact of the deal peaks in 2015 ($11.95 million, before receding to $8.85 million in ’16), there has been speculation about whether the Eagles may release him.However, Shady doesn’t think that will happen.
“I don’t feel like that,” McCoy told Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com. “I really don’t. The type of player that I am, the teammate, how I feel about my franchise and what I mean to them — I’ve got a great relationship with my coaches and teammates. That’s not in my mindset that it would happen to me. But it’s a business. Anything can happen.”
He is way too talented to be dropped at this stage of his career. Changing the terms of his contract to ease the salary-cap impact on the Eagles seems a more likely maneuver, though McCoy isn’t willing to take a pay cut.
“I know how hard it is to keep a team together and I want to be part of this team. But I don’t want to take less money,” McCoy said. “I want to figure a way to make it happen [where] we’re all together.”
The most likely scenario is that the two sides will rework his contract and push some of that cap hit down the road a bit.
