Philadelphia Eagles Should Be Interested In Ronnie Hillman

The Philadelphia Eagles seem to be done dipping into the free agency pool this offseason, and appear to have their sights set on the upcoming draft. With their army of draft selections mostly after the third round (thanks, Chip Kelly), the Eagles need their research perhaps more than anyone else.

But I don’t think they should be done with free agency entirely. I think there’s one more player out there who could be a solid addition to the roster, and that’s running back Ronnie Hillman.

Hillman fits the mold of what the Eagles have been looking for, most notably his youth at age 24 and his extremely modest price tag. Anyone who’s still looking for a home at this point is going to come dirt cheap, and Hillman would be well worth whatever chunk of coin it’ll take to sign him.

I like Hillman more because I think it’s time for the Eagles to move on from Darren Sproles. Sproles is not only significantly older than Hillman, he’s also on the last year of his contract before hitting free agency. After next year, Sproles is probably gone anyway and the Eagles get nothing for him.

But if the Eagles move now, they can accomplish two things. First things first, they save $3.5 million in cap space. Secondly, they also can probably flip Sproles for another draft pick, because even though he’s old Sproles can still give some added pop to special teams. He’ll have some value to someone out there. Granted, it won’t be very much, but it’ll be better than the nothing the Eagles get next year.

Meanwhile, Hillman’s game is pretty similar to Sproles’ game. Their skill sets are almost identical, but Hillman also does provide more of a pure ground game than Sproles. Sproles has been primarily a pass-catching specialist; Hillman can do that too, but I think he runs the ball better.

Sign Hillman, trade Sproles, save the money and get another draft pick. I think it’s a pretty solid option for the Eagles to get younger and get more cap space at the same time without giving up much of the skill set. It’s an option worth exploring, and one I hope the Eagles can pull off.