Ten Takeaways from the Eagles Draft
PHILADELPHIA - My 10 takeaways from the Eagles draft...
A.J. Brown. The stud WR won’t get down as a draft pick, but what a huge get for the offense, better than anyone the Eagles could have drafted on Thursday night.
Who will a defense double now? Brown, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert? Even if it tries to take away one, the other one will get you. Or Quez Watkins will. Or Miles Sanders or Kenny Gainwell.
“I think when a guy goes into – has a really successful rookie year and goes into his second year, he's not a secret anymore, and no one thought DeVonta was a secret, he won the Heisman Trophy, but there's still a prove it factor for a lot of these defensive coordinators in the NFL,” said head coach Nick Sirianni.
“I saw it with [Chargers WR] Keenan Allen. He had a little bit of a slip from year one to year two, just the fact the defenses were keying on him a little bit more. This is going to make that an awful lot harder for defenses to do with the proven commodity like A.J. Brown on the opposite side of him. I think most definitely this helps, obviously, our passing game and this helps DeVonta.”
More 3-4. It’s hard not to look at what the Eagles have done both in the draft and at both defensive tackle and linebacker positions and not think we will see more 3-4 looks from Jonathan Gannon.
They got a mammoth DT in Jordan Davis in the first round then added another enormous DT as an undrafted free agent in Idaho’s Noah Elliss, who, at 6-4, 346, is similar in stature to Davis at 6-6, 345.
By the way, Davis has already chosen his number. He will wear No. 90.
Then there’s the linebacker group, made infinitely stronger by the drafting of Nakobe Dean in the third and Kyron Johnson in the sixth to go along with the free-agent signings of Haason Reddick and Kyzir White and in-house players T.J. Edwards, Davion Taylor, Shaun Bradley, Patrick Johnson, Joe Ostman, JaCoby Stevens, and Christian Elliss.
That’s 11 linebackers.
“I don't know if there's a perception that we go into draft meetings or free agency meetings and take the off-ball linebackers and say, ‘No thank you,’” said GM Howie Roseman. “For us, it's as much as possible keeping the main thing the main thing, and it's always going to be about making sure the [offensive line] and [defensive line] are really strong."
Leadership. One day soon, the core leaders of this team will all be gone – Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham, and Lane Johnson. The Eagles have to begin prepping the new wave and certainly landing Davis and Dean will help in that regard. Also, wait’ll Cam Jurgens gets a lesson in the leadership stylings of Jason Kelce.
Connections. There is familiarity among the draft picks.
There’s Dean and Davis.
“He kind of clears things up for me,” said Dean. “Had me run a little bit more. He makes it easy for everybody, if you ask me, not just for the linebackers but for the rest of the [defensive line] and for the secondary. I feel like having him there is going to be great.”
Also, Jalen Hurts and Brown are good friends and spent part of the offseason training together.
The QB also has connections with sixth-round pick Grant Calcaterra, with Calcaterra beginning his college career at Oklahoma during Hurts’ one season before transferring to SMU following a brief concussion-related retirement.
“I'm so excited to get back playing with Jalen,” said Calcaterra on a Zoom call shortly after he was selected. “He was a great teammate at Oklahoma. We’re definitely good friends. I have a ton of respect for him as a player, off the field as well. Yeah, just at Oklahoma it was evident how he was a leader so fast, coming in as a transfer and excited to get to work with him.
“I've kept in touch with him a little bit in my journey back to playing. Just got off the phone with him five minutes ago. I'm so excited to get back playing with him.”
Truth. Roseman stayed true to the team’s draft board and didn’t force anything. He could have easily settled and taken a cornerback or safety but didn’t have one ranked as high as Jurgens or Dean. Then, on the final day, with just two picks, there just wasn’t one he believed could come in and compete to start.
No player trades. Jalen Reagor and Andre Dillard were believed two tradable commodities to try to get another pick or two on the third day. It never happened. The two could be potential trade chips this summer if/when they decide they don’t have enough pieces they can count on in the secondary.
Secondary. Yeah, it’s a concern. As much as Roseman expressed happiness with what he has on the back end, including at cornerback, he sure did add a few more pieces late Saturday in the undrafted free agent market, with Mario Goodrich, Josh Jobe, and Josh Blackwell signing up to try to win a job.
Aggression. Eagles fans sometimes don’t realize how lucky they are to have Roseman.
Who is as aggressive as him? Who draws the type of national media that were on hand for the first night of the draft, including NFL veteran scribe Peter King, than Roseman?
They all showed up with the expectation that the Eagles would do something, and sure enough, Roseman did, engineering the Brown blockbuster.
“Coach and I talk about this all the time, if we're going to be the same as everyone else, we're probably going to finish in the middle of the pack,” Roseman said during his pre-draft availability. “Sometimes you have to take risks and you have to stand out there and do something different than everyone else."
UDFAs. Trading away five of his 10 picks didn’t seem to hurt, and Roseman probably knew it wouldn’t since this was a deep draft pool, made deeper with players who stayed an extra year off college after the NCAA allowed them to if they wanted to account for the COVID-19 season.
My expectation is that three will make the team. Don’t ask which ones until I have seen them.
Grades. Everybody wants to grade to a draft class right after it's completed. People ask me mine. My rule of thumb, though, is I wait three years. That said, this on the surface looks like a solid A. It was light in quantity but heavy on quality.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
