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Murphy: Cutting bait on Mychal Kendricks is the Eagles' only rational move

What's more important: saving face, or saving salary cap space?

That's a decision the Eagles will have to make at some point over the next 10 days, and if they're even marginally acquainted with basic economic principles, they'll have an easy time of it.

Besides, when it comes to the $16 million they'll have paid Mychal Kendricks over three years, there isn't much face to be saved.

The math is simple: by cutting or trading Kendricks before the start of the new league year, the Eagles will free up twice the amount of salary cap space than if they waited until this time next year. That money won't necessarily help them immediately, which is why you haven't heard his name mentioned nearly as often as guys like Connor Barwin, Jason Peters, and Jason Kelce, all of whom feature significant splits between their 2017 cap number and the relatively minimal dead money that would remain on the books if the Eagles chose to move on. Barwin, for example, will cost just $600,000 to cut, compared with a 2017 cap number of $8.35 million if he remains. In the cold, transactional world of NFL roster management, that makes even a well-respected player of his magnitude a veritable dead man walking.

Kendricks, on the other hand, will count $4.8 million against the cap in 2017 if the Eagles part ways, compared with a cap number of $6.6 million. In other words, such a move would net them a comparatively paltry $1.8 million in 2017 spending capacity to fill his roster spot with somebody else. If the world were guaranteed to end on 12/31/17 — which, despite trending in that direction, it is not — there would be a strong argument for keeping the 2012 second-round draft pick in the fold for another year. After all, $1.8 million doesn't go very far on the free agent market, even when it comes to replacing a player who participated in just 27 percent of his team's defensive snaps in 2016. Heck, the Eagles had to spend more than that for a linebacker who ended up participating in just 7 percent of those snaps (Stephen Tulloch: $2.5 million).

As it stands now, though, the Eagles have a future to plan for, and moving on from Kendricks would give them an extra $5 million to allocate toward it. Cutting (or trading) him now would free up a total of $9.8 million in cap space in 2017 and 2018 combined, compared with $4.4 million if they waited until this time next year, when such a move would count $3.2 million in dead money against the cap (compared with a cap number of $7.6 million).

Here's the either/or in another form:

Option 1) Spend $6.6 million on cap space on Kendricks in 2017 and $3.2 million on him in 2018. Two-year total: $9.8 million

Option 2) Spend $4.8 million on Kendricks in 2017, and $0 million on him in 2018. Two-year total: $4.8 million.

The difference between the two options is $5.0 million, which leaves the Eagles considering one question:

Is that $5.0 million better spent on one season of a linebacker whose playing time has fallen from 66 percent of snaps to 51 percent of snaps to 27 percent of snaps over the last three seasons? Or can the Eagles get more value out of that $5.0 million by spending it on some other player?

Last year's market suggests that the answer is nearly self-evident, as the Eagles were able to sign linebacker Nigel Bradham for an average of $3.5 million against the cap over two seasons. Bradham essentially replaced Kendricks last year, playing 97 percent of the Eagles' snaps.

Cutting (or trading) Kendricks would only give the Eagles an additional $1.8 million this year, but it'd give them an additional $7.6 million next year, compared with an additional $0 million this year and $4.4 million next year if they kept him on the roster for 2017.

The reality is, we should probably be looking at Kendricks the same way we're looking at Barwin, especially when you consider that $4.35 million of Kendricks' 2017 salary becomes fully guaranteed on March 11.

Here's what it boils down to: Kendricks is a sunk cost, and it makes no sense to continue throwing good money after bad. Doing so would only compound the miscalculation the Eagles made in signing the linebacker to a contract extension in 2015 and stripping themselves of an average of $4.1 million per year from 2015-17, money that could have been used to, say, beat the Chiefs' offer to Jeremy Maclin, or fund a chunk of a contract extension for Bennie Logan.

If Kendricks' time with the Eagles does come to an end over the next 10 days, his legacy will be as a glaring reminder of the death spiral Jeffrey Lurie created by allowing a dysfunctional working relationship between Howie Roseman and Chip Kelly to metastasize into a protracted power struggle. Given the self-interested merits of obfuscation, we'll probably never know how, exactly, the Eagles decided that Kendricks was worth such a deal in the summer of 2015. But one thing is clear: the optimal strategy dictates that they admit the mistake.