Andy Weidl Sounds Like a Brandon Aiyuk Guy

The Eagles need a receiver in the worst way and the team’s new personnel chief may have revealed what type of wideout Philadelphia is looking for in the modern NFL.

“It's become a space game and it's become a game of matchups and spreading people out,” Eagles VP of Player Personnel Andy Weidl told reporters during his pre-draft media availability on Thursday.

For most around the league, the top four options in what has been called a historically-deep WR class are Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb, the Alabama duo of Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs, as well as LSU’s Justin Jefferson.

From there it becomes a 31 flavors draft, according to NFL Network draft analyst and former league scout Daniel Jeremiah, in that there’s something for everybody.

Jeremiah, for one, does not believe any of those top four receivers will make it down to the Eagles at No. 21 overall so where would that leave Philadelphia?

Weidl wasn’t specific of course but did give at least a description of his favorite flavor of receiver.

“Receivers that can win on all three levels early, top of the route and guys that can stretch the field,” he said. “It's become a one-on-one league and a space game and guys that can win and guys that can go above the rim and play the football. It's really evolved into that I believe.”

Of the next tier of receivers that description would best fit Arizona State’s Brandon Aiyuk, an immensely talented YAC machine with a freakish 6-foot-9 wingspan despite standing a tad under 6-foot.

“He’s the one most likely to make something out of nothing,” an AFC personnel executive told SI.com when discussing the WR class.

Despite that Aiyuk may drop a bit due to injury concerns. He recently underwent surgery in Philadelphia for a core-muscle injury under the auspices of Dr. William Meyers. The nagging issue is one of the reasons the explosive former Sun Devils star ran a little bit slower than expected at the scouting combine.

Poor 40 time or not, though, the film says Aiyuk is field fast and that matters to Weidl, who grew up in pro football under the shadow of the legendary Chuck Noll in Pittsburgh.

“I think it’s time speed and play speed,” Weidl explained. “I think you talk about when you're watching a guy play, sometimes the 40 times don't match up with the play speed, but a lot of times you have to come back to what you see on tape, are they running by people consistently, do they create gaps of separation. I think those are all things.”

In other words, field speed is greater than stopwatch speed.

“It's evident we do tape study on players and you see sometimes the quality of defensive backs that players go up against. But there are a lot of fast receivers in this draft,” said Weidl. “The play speed, I remember my time with the Steelers, Chuck Noll always talked about play speed and play strength is different than time speed and measured strength sometimes.”

Howie Roseman offered a perfect example.

“You see all the time that a guy may run a 4.4 but he gets in pads and he doesn't play to that time speed and then the opposite,” the Philadelphia GM said. “We tell our scouts all the time, I don't know that there's a faster guy in pads that I've ever seen in my 21-year career than DeSean Jackson, and he didn't run the fastest 40. So I think that we have to make sure that we are evaluating that.”

If the top four options at WR are are indeed gone the Eagles probably won’t need to take Aiyuk at No. 21 but he’s also unlikely to reach 53 when Philadelphia is next up making a trade down the best-case scenario.

If Roseman can’t find a dance partner, however, there are worse things than “reaching” for a player you like.

John McMullen covers the Eagles for SI.com and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every day on SIRIUSXM’s Tony Bruno Show with Harry Mayes, Every Tuesday and Thursday with Eytan Shander on SBNation Radio, and every weekday on ESPN 97.3 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen