Eagles
Ronald Darby Signs With Redskins
Penn State Great Valley MBA, Penn State Berks Undergrad, Eagle Scout and Vigil Honor, IT Service Manager. I joined Sports Talk Philly in 2017 and root for all the Philly teams (as well as their minor league counter parts).
All posts by Paul BowmanPublished29 Mar 2020
By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor 
Another Eagles free agent has left the team with Ronald Darby reportedly agreeing to a new deal.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reports that the cornerback will be heading to the Redskins on a one-year, $4 million deal.
Ronald Darby has agreed to a one-year, $4-million deal with the Redskins, per source.
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) March 29, 2020
Darby was a solid corner for the team in both 2017 and 2018 (when he wasn’t injured), but recency bias takes it’s affect and Darby was awful all of 2019, finding himself ranked among the worst in the game.
In 2019, he allowed 17 yards per reception and gave up a 117.9 passer rating when targeted.
Correctly, the Eagles moved on and Darby was left to take the most lucrative deal. Frankly, the $4 million is more than was expected considering he’s missed significant portions of the last three seasons and was among the worst in the league at his position.
Still his play was at a higher level not too long ago as he registered six interceptions, 32 passes defended and 114 tackles in just 28 games with the Eagles. The Redskins are betting on getting him healthy and back to the play he showed just a few seasons ago.
As for compensatory picks, Darby would qualify for the Eagles with a $4 million salary.
2020 Eagles Compensatory Pick Chart
| RB Jordan Howard | Miami Dolphins | $4.9M | 6 | ||||
| CB Ronald Darby | Washington Redskins | $4M | 6 | ||||
| LB Kamu Grugier-Hill | Miami Dolphins | $3M | 7 | ||||
| WR Nelson Agholor | Las Vegas Raiders | $1M | DNQ | S/CB Will Parks | Denver Broncos | $1.5M | DNQ |
| LB Jatavis Brown | Los Angeles Chargers | $0.9M | DNQ | ||||
| OT Jason Peters | Unsigned | – | – | ||||
| DE Vinny Curry | Unsigned | – | – | ||||
| DT Tim Jernigan | Unsigned | – | – | ||||
Round estimates via OverTheCap
The Eagles would now be in line for three picks, though all are much lower than they received for the 2020 draft, at the moment. The issue for the Birds is that the league limits the amount of compensatory picks to 32 and if no teams sign qualifying free agents that would eliminate their own compensatory picks, the pick for Kamu Grugier-Hill would certainly fall outside those first 32 and Darby’s deal falls right on that borderline. If the picks were given out today, the team may only receive the sixth-round pick for Jordan Howard due to the 32-pick limit.
