Eagles Howie Roseman Explains Stance On Not Getting A Safety Until Late In Draft

PHILADELPHIA – There will be winners and losers on the Eagles’ roster coming out of the three-day NFL draft. Maybe the biggest winner is Marcus Epps. The 30-year-old veteran looks like he will be the starter alongside second-year pro Drew Mukuba, as of now.

In a draft loaded with safeties, it wasn’t until the seventh round, after 243 picks had been made, that Howie Roseman leaned in the direction of one, selecting Cole Wisniewski, who grew up in Wisconsin, started his college career at North Dakota State, then transferred to Texas Tech for his final season, transitioning from linebacker to safety along the way.

He could very well end up being the next Reed Blankenship, who Roseman mentioned had some traits that remind him of what Wisniewski offers.

“Really instinctive, got great ball skills,” said the GM about the first of three seventh-round picks he made on Saturday. “He’s a physical player. Obviously, there’s some reminder of a guy we won the Super Bowl with. Obviously, those are tough shoes to fill, but when you watched him, you saw some of the things you liked about Reed. That would be an unbelievable outcome, an unbelievable career that Reed had. We’ll miss that guy for sure.”

Cole Wisniewski Reminds Howie Roseman Of Another Safety

The Eagles chose a safety at the exact same point in the draft – 244 overall – in 2010, Roseman’s first season in charge, in league, of course, with Andy Reid. That was Kurt Coleman, who had a steady 10-year career that included 21 interceptions. His first four years were spent in Philly, where he made seven of those picks.

The fourth and early fifth rounds were fertile territory for safeties the Eagles had on their board, but they had traded away the two picks they had in that round to the Cowboys to move up three spots to select Makai Lemon in the first round.

“The most important thing is how we feel each weekend coming home from those games,” said Roseman. “Some of the things that we did in giving up those picks, they were to make us the best possible during this season. … We’re looking fort difference makers, and we feel like we got the opportunity to get them at cost. For sure, it wasn’t cheap to get them, but we believe it’ll be worth it.”

The fourth round and early to mid-fifth was fertile territory for safeties, with Genesis Smith coming off the board and Dalton Johnson, Zakee Wheatley, and Michael Taaffe being taken early to mid-fifth round.

“You go into this understanding that you’re going to come out of it with not everything perfect, but probably have a different vision of our safety room than maybe it is publicly,” said the GM. “Again, it will all sort itself out. We don’t play our first game until September.

"At every position, we have to see what we have. If we went in the draft and filled every hole, we probably wouldn’t have had a good draft. It remains to be seen if we even had a good draft. We’ll see. We have time to judge. We understood that we couldn’t get everything we wanted at every position."

Add us as a preferred source on Google