On a day when the market for inside linebackers began to flicker, the Philadelphia Eagles poured gasoline on the embers early Friday night, rescinding the "franchise" designation on star defender Jeremiah Trotter and making the two-time Pro Bowl performer an unrestricted free agent.

What the Eagles insist they haven't done, however, is douse the club's Super Bowl aspirations by cutting ties with an integral component to their defense. It remains to seen, though, if replacement Barry Gardner can step into the breach and if coordinator Jim Johnson's aggressive scheme is as effective minus a four-year veteran who was also a strong presence in the locker room.

"It was not an unreasonable decision," executive vice president Joe Banner told ESPN.com on Friday night.

Perhaps, but suddenly the deals made earlier in the day by the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns, each team filling a big vacancy at inside linebacker, look modest. The Steelers agreed to terms with former New York Jets starter James Farrior on a three-year deal worth approximately $5.5 million. The Browns then reached terms with Earl Holmes, jilted by the Steelers, on a five-year contract that is worth $17.5 million.

But in a world where timing is everything one has to wonder if either deal, but especially the one in Cleveland, would have been consummated had teams known Trotter would become available. The move by the Eagles, which rebates $5.515 million into the club's salary cap, leaves the club with a question mark in the middle of its vaunted defense.

Almost as significant, it leaves a hole in the hearts of those general managers and coaches from around the league who already made moves at middle linebacker, assuming that Trotter would carry the "franchise" tag into July and thus making him all but untouchable. One can surmise that several franchises will be scrambling over the weekend to conjure up ways of creating salary-cap room, even in a tight market, to accommodate a player of Trotter's ilk.

Houston and Green Bay, both with openings for an inside/middle linebacker, probably will head the list of teams with interest. The expansion Texans have more than sufficient cap room but the Packers would likely have to be far more creative. Notable is that Texans coach Dom Capers is also represented by Trotter's agent, Jimmy Sexton, and that putting him next to Jamie Sharper in the Houston 3-4 alignment would make the expansion team tough up the middle. Washington and the New York Giants might also be interested.

Sexton and Trotter proposed to the Eagles brass on Monday, sources told ESPN.com, that the linebacker would sign the one-year qualifying offer of $5.515 million for a franchise player at his position. The caveat: A deal would have to stipulate that Philadelphia could not designate the four-year veteran as a franchise player again next spring.

If that was an attempt at rapprochement, Eagles officials viewed it as yet one more sign Trotter did not want to remain with the franchise for the long-term. In a Friday morning meeting of the team's top football officials, the Eagles decided that Trotter's continued unhappiness with the franchise tag, and seeming reluctance to come to grips with it two months after it was applied, was sufficient reason to cut him loose.

"Two months ago," said Banner, "our attitude was, 'OK, let's put the tag on him. He won't be thrilled, but we'll see how he reacts to it.' We knew we had time, if he didn't accept it well, to look at the alternatives. And that's what we did."

There now remain five franchise players -- offensive tackles Walter Jones (Seattle) and Flozell Adams (Dallas), tight end Tony Gonzalez (Kansas City), kicker Jason Elam (Denver) and free safety Kwamie Lassiter (Arizona) -- in the league who are unsigned. But more important is that a free agent market all but tapped out has gained a high-profile presence.

Given the middle linebacker's success, cutting Trotter appears at first blush to be an inexplicable decision. Trotter is only 25 years old, has averaged 135 tackles a year and was also emerging as a force in the pass rush, and has already been to a couple Pro Bowl games.

But beyond what they felt would become an untenable situation for the 2002 season, the Eagles clearly agreed with those scouts who regard Trotter as an up-and-down performer, not one of the game's premier players at the middle linebacker spot. They apparently also subscribe to the theory that linebackers, especially in the middle, are not as essential a part of the game anymore.

In actuality, the negotiations between the Eagles and Trotter began about 18 months ago. But a deal could not be reached then and that marked, in essence, the beginning to the end of Trotter's short but sometimes brilliant tenure with the team.

Certainly the release of Trotter wasn't designed to create more cap room, since the Eagles are typically among the league leaders in space available. And it was not mean to clear the way for the addition of Tampa Bay defensive tackle Warren Sapp, the subject of trade rumors that have him headed to Philadelphia for a first-round draft choice.

No matter the rationale, the move is a dicey one for Philadelphia, clearly among the very small subset of teams that will contend for a Super Bowl berth in 2002. Altering the dynamic of a veteran team, toying with the fine-tuned equilibrium of a club that has been together now for a few years and shares a rare single-mindedness, is always risky business.

But the Eagles' business figures to soon turn into some other team's pleasure. The realities of the market are what they are. Just ask Holmes, whose contract with the Browns is severely backloaded and inflated by salaries in seasons he will never play. But even in a tight market, with little cap space available leaguewide, someone is apt to scrounge up enough to make Jeremiah Trotter a wealthy young man.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.