Eagles Draft Day Round 3: Anticlimactic End To Day 2

PHILADELPHIA -

The Skinny: The Eagles ended Day 2 of the draft with a whimper by trading down twice and ultimately out of Round 3.

Eagles GM Howie Roseman first retreated from No. 96 overall down to 101 in a trade with the Atlanta Falcons, moving from the last traditional pick of the round into the compensatory grouping that closed out the day. Philadelphia also added a 2026 fifth-round pick for doing so, which brings its pick total to 12 or 13 next April, depending on how things fall with the comp picks in 12 months.

“Getting the pick next year, I think we’ll be at 12, 13 picks next year and lot of them in the first five rounds,” he said. “I think obviously that’s exciting. Not saying we don’t have things we want to improve on this football team right now because we do, but again we felt like the move down gave us an opportunity in the fourth round here to kind of sleep on it and really get our board set and ready."

The Falcons used that pick on playmaking Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts, a player many Eagles fans wanted at No. 64 when Roseman decided the space-eating Texas safety Andrew Makuba of Texas was the better option.

Roseman then moved completely out of the third round, sending pick No. 101 to Denver, along with No. 134 in the fourth round for Nos. 111 and 130 in the fourth round, plus No. 191 in the sixth round.

The Eagles GM intimated he was trying to move up from No. 96 with something in mind but that never came to fruition.

“When we’re picking where we were in the third round, we’re really watching the board looking for opportunities to move up, and to kind of watching where it was and where we felt like there was an opportunity to get somebody who was maybe a little higher on our board, then the opportunity where there was kind of a sweet spot on our board,” Roseman explained. “As we got close to our pick, we had a couple of opportunities there that we felt like kind of maximized where we were on our board.”

In other words, the Eagles didn't feel great about anything left at the end of Day 3 and tapped out into trying to better maximize the next tier of players.

The Eagles will enter the final day of the draft with six picks.

“Having six picks (Saturday) is a great opportunity to improve our football team on the third day," Roseman said. "It’s a really fun day for us, and we just felt like it made sense to make those two moves with where the board was at.”

Instant Reaction: Fans like volume and most didn't like moving out of what's considered a premium pick, even at the end of Round 3. Logically, Roseman only moved down 15 spots to gain two extra picks and probably deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Should Have Selected: Athletic William & Mary tackle Charles Grant was available at No. 96, and it would have been nice to see what offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland could have done with that piece of clay.

MORE NFL: Eagles Draft Day Round 2: Undersized, Aggressive Safety Added