Eagles lose out on draft pick through no fault of their own after Bengals back out of a recent trade for not knowing the rules
The Philadelphia Eagles thought they were getting a draft pick back for Arnold Ebiketie. Now the edge rusher is headed back to Philadelphia, and the reason the deal collapsed should raise eyebrows across the league.
The Philadelphia Eagles had an Arnold Ebiketie trade lined up with the Cincinnati Bengals, and it looked like another smart move from general manager Howie Roseman. Philadelphia was moving on from the edge rusher and getting a draft pick back. It was a tidy piece of business for a front office that rarely leaves value on the table.
That deal is now off.
NFL insider Jordan Schultz was first to report that the Eagles and Bengals will not go through with the Ebiketie trade. The breakdown had nothing to do with a physical, and it had nothing to do with Ebiketie’s performance. Instead, it came down to Cincinnati not understanding the NFL’s compensatory pick formula until after it agreed to the deal.
Why the Bengals backed out of the Arnold Ebiketie trade
Let me bring you up to speed. The first person to dig into the details was Nick Korte, and he deserves credit for laying out exactly what went wrong:
“Arnold Ebiketie was signed as a compensatory free agent by the Eagles. The Bengals lost 3 compensatory free agents and signed 2. Thus, while they gain a 2027 6th rounder, they lose a 2027 3rd round comp pick. That was via Trey Hendrickson going to Baltimore.”
In other words, Cincinnati would have added Ebiketie but lost a third-round compensatory pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. Hendrickson’s departure to the Ravens was supposed to bring the Bengals that pick. Bringing in Ebiketie would have tipped the balance of compensatory free agents lost and signed, and the formula would have wiped out that third-round selection.
Once the Bengals realized it, they hit the brakes. That left the Eagles holding the bag.
Eagles pay the price for Cincinnati’s mistake
In my opinion, this shouldn’t be possible. I understand that trades are not finalized until everything is official, and that teams technically have room to walk away before then. But if a team agrees with Roseman to trade for a player and doesn’t know the rules, that’s on that team. Philadelphia shouldn’t absorb the fallout.
Cincinnati has a GM, a front office, and capologists whose entire job is to work through the compensatory formula before a deal like this gets agreed to. Somebody in that building should have understood the circumstances and consequences of acquiring Ebiketie long before the news went public. Instead, the Bengals figured it out after the fact and pulled the plug.
As a result, Ebiketie now has to go back to the Eagles and face the music. He returns to a locker room and a coaching staff that just tried to move him, which isn’t a comfortable spot for anyone involved. Philadelphia also loses the draft pick it was counting on, along with whatever plans Roseman had for that extra capital.
None of that is the Eagles’ fault. Roseman did his homework, found a trade partner, and agreed to terms. He just happened to find a partner that didn’t do the same.
A trade involving an NFL roster player fell apart because one front office didn’t know how compensatory picks work. It’s a wild, wild circumstance, and the Eagles are the ones stuck dealing with it.
