While the crowds cheer for Phillies and Sixers, Eagles lay groundwork for loudest season of them all | Bob Ford

The long annual civic slog between the final Eagles game of the season and their opening game of the next has been interrupted this year by the sudden competence of the Phillies and the high ceiling of a 76ers team that spent so long on the floor.

What with all the Bryce Harper home runs and Joel Embiid dunks, it’s been downright hard to concentrate on the impact of Lane Johnson’s restructured contract or to sort out what the addition of L.J. Fort to the linebacking corps actually means. If this keeps up, the proper attention might not even be paid when Phase One workouts begin April 15, if you can believe that.

Yes, it’s a new world, and about time. The Phillies and Sixers both proved to be mere teases a year ago, although far more interesting than usual. The Phils faded away in the guts of the season, while the Sixers made the playoffs for the first time since Sharone Wright retired, but had neither the firepower nor depth to hang with Boston in the second round.

All that was prelude to this year, as the Phils acquired Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Andrew McCutchen and Jean Segura to announce their intentions, and the Sixers threw a hat over the wall by trading for Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris. The price of poker has been raised to the extent that not only are there postseason expectations for both teams, but raking in the entire pot doesn’t seem wildly out of their reach.

We’ll see about that – and about the legitimate questions that remain regarding the Sixers’ bench and overall defensive dedication, and the Phillies’ starting pitching – but we’ll definitely be watching while we see. Watching, even if it means not getting to an analysis of the third-day safety prospects in the NFL draft. Man, that’s different.

The funny thing, however, is that the Eagles have been quietly filling the vacuum with a series of very smart offseason moves, and are setting themselves up to still be the big local story of 2019. It won’t start in earnest until September, when the Phillies are marching toward the playoffs, of course, but don’t be surprised if by season’s end, the football team is the talk of the year again.

It isn’t that Howie Roseman has generated anything close to the headlines that followed the arrival of Butler, Harris or Harper. He brought back DeSean Jackson, and that was more than a blip on the radar, and somehow kept Brandon Graham from slipping away in free agency, but, in general, the beauty of the Eagles’ offseason lies in the pattern of all the moves taken together.

To start, the Eagles were in salary-cap jail and, even for a wizard like Roseman, breaking out was going to be tough. It was assumed that Nick Foles and his $20 million option would be a casualty, but, even beyond that, the task was significant.

Consider, that the Eagles this offseason have: signed center Jason Kelce to a three-year extension that guarantees $17.5 million; secured Graham with a three-year contract in which $27 million is guaranteed; extended Isaac Seumalo with a contract that guarantees $12.5 million; and also got deals done with defensive tackle Malik Jackson, linebacker Fort, receiver Jackson, defensive end Vinny Curry, safety Rodney McLeod, cornerback Ronald Darby, offensive tackle Jason Peters, tight end Richard Rodgers, and assumed the contract of running back Jordan Howard in a trade.

They aren’t all marquee moves, but where the hell did Roseman get the money to make them? Well, he did a bunch of stuff, and proved that the front office learned valuable lessons from the previous post-Super Bowl. The team declined options on Tim Jernigan and Stefan Wisniewski, traded Michael Bennett, and allowed Jordan Hicks to drift away in free agency. Roseman worked out the restructuring of Lane Johnson’s contract, with a savings of more than $8 million on the upcoming cap. He wrote contracts that were friendly to 2019 and has gotten to April with somewhere around $20 million in cap space that can still be employed.

The obvious use for that space would be working out an extension with Carson Wentz. The Eagles could wait a year, but the price for the quarterback would almost certainly rise if he stays healthy. There’s no future in the organization betting that Wentz gets hurt again. If it wins, it loses.

» READ MORE: What we think of the Jordan Howard trade

There are still holes to fill in the roster, and the team has to determine by June 1 if Brandon Brooks is likely to recover from Achilles surgery and be worth his price tag. A few of the holes have to be filled by doing well in the draft; where the Eagles have three picks among the first 57, and five picks in the first four rounds. It would be a surprise if the team doesn’t use its first-round pick (25th) on a defensive lineman, but since the entire offseason has been surprisingly unpredictable, maybe not.

This is a spring dominated by home runs and slam dunks, which is a nice change from strikeouts and air balls. It’s worth noting, though, that off in the quiet corner of the local sports world, the football team is hitting a few out and throwing down some others, too. Check back in December and we’ll know which team made the ones that counted.