Eagles

Not Even Howie Roseman Can Screw Up This Draft… Right?

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Apr 26th, 2021 · 9:12 AM EDT

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It’s NFL Draft week.

A great week to be alive.

There’s nothing quite like the draft, when we consume multiple days of football to watch teams shape their futures and young men realize their dreams. When the college game wholly intersects with the pro game and months and months of mock drafts and other assorted speculation finally manifest on the grand stage, in a pigskin crescendo of Roger Goodell bro hugs.

The draft is always enjoyable, unless you’re an Eagles fan, because inevitably we’ll be sitting there wondering why Howie Roseman and company overthought their position and wound up selecting the wrong player. Why did they take Jalen Reagor when Justin Jefferson was available? Why J.J. Arcega-Whiteside? Jalen Hurts in the second round? And a project linebacker in the third?

Oftentimes, the Eagles think they’re the smartest people in the room, and  we’d hope that’s the case, because they’re the football experts and we’re not. But sometimes you just have to dumb it down and do the obvious. Trust your scouts. Stay true to your board. Take the best player available and, God forbid, draft guys from the SEC and Big 10. So many of the fixes seem obvious.

With incredible hesitation, I believe that not even Howie Roseman can fuck up this draft, and here’s why:

1. He’s already made one good move. Trading back from six to 12 while picking up a 2022 first rounder provides flexibility moving forward. They have more capital to shift next year if they want to trade for a QB or move up into the first round, should Jalen Hurts turn out not to be the guy.
2. Because of the early run on quarterbacks, they are essentially working off a separate board entirely. We know three quarterbacks are going in the top three. There will likely be another one or two in the 4 to 11 range. That means the Eagles can simply sit there, do nothing, and end up with one of the top 7-9 players at every other position combined.
3. This one seems obvious, but when the roster blows, and you need help everywhere, your dart board becomes bigger. They can draft LB, CB, O-line, D-line, receiver, or tight end, and nobody should complain, because there’s a dearth of talent across the board.

The other option is for the Eagles to move up or move back. Moving up might be silly, considering the fact that they already moved back once, but you could try to jump up a few spots without moving a first rounder, and keep next year’s Dolphins pick. Likewise, if Trey Lance and Mac Jones go in the top 11, and that moves the board down a bit, you could drop back to 15 or 16, pick up some extra capital, and perhaps still get a crack at a Jaycee Horn or Jaylen Waddle. It would be hard to argue with that end result. They are a transitional, rebuilding team, and they need as much draft ammunition as possible.

If you listened to the recent press conference with Howie Roseman and Andy Weidl, the VP of Player Personnel, one of the things you heard Weidl reiterate was that the coaching staff, front office, and scouting department were on “the same page.” That could just be lip service, but he said it a few times early in the presser, and Roseman did not dispute reports that the Eagles’ various units were not in sync last year. If was widely reported that the scouting staff was high on Jefferson while the other faction liked Reagor more.

Said Weidl:

“I’d say what I’ve learned is that — what I’ve touched on earlier, which is adjusting with the new coaching staff, and our staff is, as well, and finding players that fit the program that Nick (Sirianni) is establishing here and Howie. We’re an extension of the coaching staff ultimately, the scouts, and we want to go out and find the players that best fit this program that are going to come in and hit the ground and go.

I think when you have alignment between that and like we had last week, you had a bunch of people talking about players, how they saw them, their viewpoint, and there’s no ego involved, you’re just trying to get the player right, and ultimately that’s what we’re trying to do is get the player right for the Philadelphia Eagles.

When you have that alignment and everybody is in sync, great things are possible.”

Some people tried to read between the lines with this quote and came away with an indictment of the prior coaching staff, but you can interpret it however you like. Regardless, Weidl is using the right words, talking about being in ‘sync’ and having that ‘alignment’ between the various parties involved in player-personnel.

As a short exercise, we can go through the draft board and do a mock, based on what little we know. If there are three quarterbacks going off the board in the top three, and we can safely say that Ja’Marr Chase and Kyle Pitts will also be gone by #12, then the Eagles will have a shot at one of these players:

• Penei Sewell
• Rashawn Slater
• Patrick Surtain
• Jaycee Horn
• Micah Parsons
• Jaylen Waddle
• DeVonta Smith

And then you figure one or both of Lance/Jones will also be gone by this point, which means there’s probably going to be a top-eight projection falling back to 12. That’s a big benefit for the Eagles, though you wonder if they could have stood pat and waited to trade back on draft day for a bigger haul.

Here’s how Howie explained that philosophy:

The reason we traded back from 6 to 12 was because flexibility creates opportunity. And for us, having an extra first-round pick, when you go back and look at things that are hard to acquire, that is one of the hardest things to acquire is a team’s first-round pick in the following year and to move back six spots. But what we really had to do is sit there and go, ‘Who are the 12 players in this draft we would feel really good about? Are there 12 players in this draft that we feel really good about?’ And I think that’s what we’re going to do throughout this draft. If you move back, it’s because you feel like you have a bunch of guys that are the same value, and you’d be really happy getting one and getting the extra volume from that pick. If you move up, it’s because your board kind of drops off at that point. And if you select it’s because you feel like it’s the last player in that sort of range. When we discussed this, I think those were really the things we were discussing about.

It’s a reasonable explanation. They had a sure thing with this trade, and went down that avenue, vs. waiting and perhaps not getting what they wanted. Yes, they would have ended up with a shot at Chase or Pitts at six, but you and I both know that they need more than just one possibly-generational pass catcher moving forward. They have holes to fill all over the field.

So that’s the situation. The Eagles need help, and flexibility, and this season is going to be about turning the corner and fact finding. Is Hurts the guy? How does Nick Sirianni do in year number one? They ain’t winning the Super Bowl, so trading back and giving yourself options moving forward was the correct way to go.

The only way I can see Howie and company getting this all wrong is that they just reach for some late first round projection. If they are sitting there at 12 and take Caleb Farley with one of Surtain or Horn on the board. If they go for one of the edge rushers projected in that 17-25 range. I wouldn’t put anything past Howie, but it’s hard to see that happening if all of that talent is still available when 12 comes around.

Plus, the law of averages would say that Howie is gonna have to get it right eventually, yeah? How many draft picks can you mess up before the pendulum inevitably swings back the other way? It’s the old saying about the blind squirrel occasionally stumbling upon a nut.

There’s no scientific way to assure ourselves of this outcome, and make Eagles fans feel better, but with the situation laid out plainly for a team that is undergoing a substantial rebuild, it’s hard to see how they muck this draft up.

Not even Howie Roseman can screw up this draft…. right?