Priced out in Philadelphia, linebacker Connor Barwin banking on fresh start with Rams

Bonsignore: Priced out in Philadelphia, linebacker Connor Barwin banking on fresh start with Rams

By VINCENT BONSIGNORE / STAFF COLUMNIST

In a perfect world, Connor Barwin would still be with the Philadelphia Eagles, preparing to master his second season as a 4-3 defensive end.

Even if it meant taking a pay cut, something he was willing to do to stay in Philadelphia and help the Eagles rebuild to the next level.

The NFL is hardly a perfect world, though.

More specifically, the unforgiving salary cap system in which teams too often are forced to make decisions based on number-crunching rather than performance.

Barwin being a case in point, lest you think the still-productive edge pass-rusher just showed up three weeks ago on the open market for any old reason.

Or why the Rams, looking for an outside linebacker to play in new defensive coordinator Wade Phillips' 3-4 defense, quickly swooped in to secure the 30-year-old to a one-year contract worth $6.5 million.

The Rams and Barwin are a marriage made in football heaven.

But only the result of a divorce provoked by fiscal convenience rather than a falling out.

The Eagles, in need of skill players and protection for young quarterback Carson Wentz but with only $7 million in cap space, desperately needed to create financial wiggle room as they approached free agency.

Their focus immediately turned to the defensive line, where an inordinate amount of cap space was devoted.

Barwin, a veteran pass-rusher whose numbers dipped last season after the Eagles switched from a 3-4 scheme to a 4-3 – and who was about to enter the final two years of a back-loaded contract – was an easy target.

After unsuccessfully trying to trade him, the Eagles approached him about restructuring his contract. Barwin was receptive, but not to the extent the Eagles needed. Out of options and desperate for cap flexibility, the Eagles released him.

In doing so, they created a $7.75 million windfall to devote to free agency.

As for Barwin, he was just collateral damage in an imperfect NFL world.

Sans the hard feelings.

“There's a lot of money in that defensive line room in Philadelphia,” he said. “And I think they wanted to use that money, probably smartly, to help out Carson Wentz and load up on some wide receivers and offensive linemen.”

That door closed, two others soon opened.

One offered a pathway back to Southern Ohio, where Barwin first emerged as an NFL prospect 10 years ago as a college star at Cincinnati.

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