Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) – The Philadelphia Eagles formally released cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha just before the start of Tuesday’s free agency period, putting an end to the once-coveted cover man’s disappointing two-year tenure with the team.<\/p>\n
The Eagles signed Asomugha, widely considered to be the prize of the 2011 free-agent class, to a lucrative five-year, $60-million pact shortly after the lockout, but the four-time All-Pro generally failed to meet expectations over his two seasons and was scheduled to earn $15 million in 2013.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia will still owe Asomugha, who had been among the league’s elite corners during his eight seasons with the Oakland Raiders, $4 million for this coming season, but weren’t able to reach an agreement with the 31-year-old on a restructured pact.<\/p>\n
“We spoke to his representatives at the Combine about his future status with the team and wanted to take time to analyze and make a decision,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said in a statement. “In the end, Coach [Chip Kelly] and I both felt we needed to move in a different direction at the cornerback position for 2013 and beyond.”<\/p>\n
Asomugha played in all 32 games with the Eagles over the past two seasons, recording a total of four interceptions and 17 passes defensed, but was one of the prime culprits in a shoddy secondary that permitted a league-high 33 touchdowns through the air during Philadelphia’s rough 4-12 campaign of 2012.<\/p>\n
“Coach Kelly and I each had a chance to speak with Nnamdi earlier and he took the news with a lot of class,” said Roseman. “We expected nothing less than that from him. He has been a true pro on and off the field for this organization and our community, and we wish him all the best as he continues his NFL career.”<\/p>\n
A first-round draft choice of Oakland in 2003, Asomugha went to three straight Pro Bowls with the Raiders from 2008-10 prior to joining the Eagles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) – The Philadelphia Eagles formally released cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha just before the start of Tuesday’s free agency period, putting an end to the once-coveted cover man’s disappointing two-year tenure with the team. The Eagles signed Asomugha, widely considered to be the prize of the 2011 free-agent class, to a lucrative five-year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[137,64,136],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl","tag-eagles","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}