How Much Credit do the Eagles Get for Fixing Their Own Mistakes? – Thoughts on a Good Draft that’s Being Overrated

Howie Roseman had a good draft.

He got a big, beefy SEC stuffer in the first round, traded a couple of picks for a stud receiver, landed Jason Kelce’s replacement, and then snagged a falling Nakobe Dean in the third round. There’s a lot of value in that haul.

If you scroll social media, you’ll find all sorts of fanboy stuff proclaiming Howie the greatest ever, that he “killed” the draft and got it all right and whatnot, which is, of course, overreaction. Philadelphia sports fans and especially media tend to overinflate both the good and bad, when typically things are much less extreme and fall somewhere in the middle.

That’s why we use the word “good” and not “great” in the opening sentence, because everything requires context, beginning with the macro-level idea that we don’t evaluate roster building in singular vacuums, but along a wider and longer path instead.

Let’s start with:

A.J. Brown

Awesome receiver. Nice job by Howie to turn a 1st and 3rd into a bona fide WR1.

We’re believers that more than one thing can be true, and the auxiliary reality is that they traded for A.J. Brown because they whiffed previously with selections like Jalen Reagor and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, which left a mistake for the Eagles to correct. As a result, they went three straight years using first round draft picks to address the receiver need, which means those resources could not be allocated elsewhere.

Case in point, if one of Reagor or JJAW hit, or they were successful bringing in Calvin Ridley or a free agent, then they could have looked to the defensive side with pick 18. They could have snagged Trent McDuffie to play opposite Darius Slay, or maybe Jermaine Johnson to replace an aging Brandon Graham. There would have been other options if they didn’t corner themselves into using another first round pick to fix the receiver issue that they themselves created.

Cam Jurgens

Jason Kelce’s replacement? Good! We’re gonna need that guy. Kelce is uber-important and might not be around after next season.

Problem is, you also have to find Malcolm Jenkins’ replacement and Rodney McLeod’s replacement, and those guys don’t even play for the Eagles anymore.

We know the Eagles value the offensive line. It’s an important personnel group and we see how crucial guys like Kelce and Lane Johnson are. But there is such a thing as overkill, and when you’ve got Landon Dickerson, Nate Herbig, Jack Driscoll, and Isaac Seumalo on the interior already (plus Kelce, and another first round pick in Andre Dillard not even playing), then Jurgens either sits for a year or boots somebody else out of their guard position before moving back to center just one year later, assuming Kelce does finally retire.

Jurgens may go on to have a great Eagles career, so concern about this selection isn’t about the player himself.  It’s just that this feels like the classic “Howie outsmarts himself” type of move where you kind of scratch your head and ask yourself what he’s doing. If Cam Taylor-Britt or Bryan Cook is tearing it up in 2022 while Jurgens sits on the bench waiting for his turn, it’s gonna be hard to swallow. It’s one thing to draft a second round quarterback and groom him for a year or whatever, but this is a fucking center we’re talking about. Teams don’t draft centers and then ask them to wait their turn.

Cam Jurgens might be a good center. Just feels like the Eagles go overkill at OL. Not the worst position to do that with … but why draft Jurgens and also give Herbig over $2M and also keep a bunch of interior OL projects on the roster. With an OL coach who does more with less.

— Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) April 30, 2022

Jordan Davis

On paper, it’s hard to argue with taking massive interior lineman from the SEC defense that won it all. Davis seems like a really good dude who will fill a position of need with Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave both on expiring deals, while the 3rd guy in the rotation, Milton Williams, is only entering his second NFL season.

If you want to nitpick anything about this selection, you could point to the Eagles having to trade a fourth and two fifth rounders to move up two spots. It’s pricey, especially when you consider they have a decent mid-draft hit rate over the years. In the past five seasons alone, they’ve pulled Kenneth Gainwell, Jack Driscoll, Avonte Maddox, and Josh Sweat out of the 4th or 5th round. If the Birds stayed put at 15, assuming the Ravens ended up taking Davis at 14, Kyle Hamilton may have been there at 15. Who knows?

Nakobe Dean

I loved watching Dean play in college. Easily a first round talent for his brain and athleticism and character.

We’d be naive, however, to not place any kind of concern in the injury issues that caused him to fall into the third round in the first place. All 32 NFL teams passed on him multiple times, Eagles included. I’m not sure if a Sidney Jones comparison is fair, since Jones’ injury was much more linear and easily defined, but there’s obviously a risk component to all of this, and we’re left trusting Eagles doctors and the player-personnel department to tell us everything is going to be okay.

Worst case scenario, Dean’s rookie season is cut short, he gets surgery, and comes back healthy in 2023. Let’s just hope with DeMarvin Leal and Nick Cross sitting there that the Birds taking a risk here ends up working out for them. Regardless, I think this was a move that they had to make, and even if Dean doesn’t work out, the value was too good to pass up.

In conclusion

I really like this draft but just don’t see the A+++ “slam dunk” that everybody on Twitter seems to be frothing over. To me, this draft is a solid B. They had to throw in extra assets to make their first round moves, after pushing one of those picks into next season, which essentially renders Howie’s pre-draft dealings a net neutral. In order to get Brown and Davis, they had to give up a third, fourth, and two fifth rounders, and after more wheeling and dealing, they didn’t pick again until the sixth round and took a Kansas linebacker and SMU firefighter/tight end.

That said, this post does not constitute “Negadelphia” or being a “contrarian.” Crossing Broad doesn’t do contrarianism, we just call it how we see it. If you want fake opposite side stances, try sports talk radio. It’s okay to be skeptical about this draft and doing so does not make you a debbie downer or whatever dumb term you wanna use.

The bottom line is that the Eagles are overstocked at some positions and severely understocked at others. If they value offensive line and defensive line, that’s fine. It’s their philosophy to build through the trenches. But what happens is that we’ve seen too many one-year Matt Klentak-inspired dumpster dives to fill other positions, namely at linebacker and in the secondary. With Nakobe Dean, Kyzir White, and Haason Reddick* in the fold, the LB group on paper finally resembles what we saw in the Nigel Bradham, Mychal Kendricks, and Jordan Hicks year (as a quick aside, the talent on the roster is looking very 3-4 preferable, isn’t it?). But in the secondary they lost a starting corner and two starting safeties, brought back one of those three in a second consecutive one-year stopgap move, and have yet to fill the others. If they go out and sign Honey Badger and/or move one of their surplus offensive linemen, then that’s a good start in working on the roster post-draft, but there’s still a ton of work to do.

If you wanna crown Howie Roseman, then crown his ass. He’s a good GM, possibly in the top-third of NFL executives, and he’ll keep the Birds competitive as long as he’s here, but people are out here acting like the guy walks on water when that’s not even close to being true.

*I don’t even know what to call Reddick until we see how Jonathan “I don’t have a scheme” Gannon schemes him up. He’s a true hybrid, but based on the moves they’ve made this offseason, it looks very much like this is gonna be a 3-4 defense moving forward, which we haven’t seen in Philly for some time now. If you consider trading up for Davis as being necessary to build a foundational piece for the 3-4, then giving up those extra picks is much more palatable. 

EDIT –

Totally forgot to mention this, but I think the obvious thing Howie should be getting credit for is drafting SEC players. Bama players. Georgia players. Keep it simple, draft guys from the best teams in the best conference. DeVonta Smith, Landon Dickerson, Davis, Dean, etc.

Let’s go Howie Roseman !!!

— Armando Bacot Jr. (@iget_buckets35) April 30, 2022