For the Eagles, Prospects Can Overcome Themes

Let’s play pick out the fake news...

The President of the United States getting attacked by a “swamp rabbit,” an actual Middle Eastern peace treaty, a riot at a ballpark over disco music, or the Philadelphia Eagles taking an off-ball linebacker in the NFL Draft?

It’s actually a trick question. All those things happened in 1979.

Jimmy Carter was on the defense against an ill-tempered Bugs Bunny while fishing in his native Georgia. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel put pen to paper on the Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty, fans got way to into Bill Veeck’s “Disco Demolition Night” at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, and the Eagles selected Jerry Robinson out of UCLA with the 21st pick in the NFL Draft.

That’s the last time the franchise has taken an off-ball LB in the first-round of the draft and former Philadelphia scout Daniel Jeremiah, now the lead draft analyst for the NFL Network, raised some eyebrows recently when he mocked Oklahoma LB Kenneth Murray to the Eagles at No. 21 overall in the 2020 NFL Draft.

“Obviously I worked there, I know the history and what they traditionally do,” said Jeremiah when asked about his curious shift away from the receiver position, perceived to be Philadelphia’s biggest need.

So what gives?

The context begins with the fact that Jeremiah believes that the draft’s top four receivers- Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb, the Alabama tandem of Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs, and LSU’s Justin Jefferson - will not be there at 21 and the next group of wideouts from five to about 12 on the board are similar.

So, if you can’t or don’t want to trade up, it’s about trading down.

For that, however, you need a dance partner and competition will be fierce, according to Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy, also a long-time league scout.

“This is calm-before-the-storm period when NFL execs call around trying to gauge trade interest,” Nagy posted on Twitter. “Hearing many teams in mid-to-late 1st are looking to move down and accumulate Day 2 picks. Feeling is you can get same level of player in 40-60 range as in the 20’s.”

Howie Roseman himself discussed the planning process in a video conference call with reporters Thursday.

“You have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario,” the Eagles GM explained. “You have to stack the board in the way that you would be comfortable taking the 21st player on your board, not hope, and we say this a lot: Hope is not a strategy; we have that sign hanging up. But not hoping that someone is going to fall to you.

“So, we will expect the worse and hope for the best.”

Jeremiah understands Roseman’s thinking in that you have to be prepared at No. 21 in case you have to pick there and that’s where the value of Murray comes in.

“I just know when I look inside that division and I've got to play Ezekiel Elliott twice a year and I've got to play Saquon Barkley twice a year, I’d like to have a guy like Kenneth Murray to match up against those players, and they do not have that player on their roster right now,” Jeremiah correctly assessed.

Don’t bet the mortgage payment on it, but LB to Philadelphia isn’t so silly any longer.

“I also know that from Joe Douglas being there with Howie and now with Andy Weidl being there with Howie, those guys came from the same place I came from in Baltimore, and we saw what a linebacker can do with Ray Lewis and the impact he can have on a football team,” Jeremiah said. “That's another side of it.”

Perhaps the final piece of the puzzle is the scouting community’s shift to “position-less players” in the back seven, hybrids that can toggle seamlessly from run support to pass coverage and back again.

“I would also say if you're looking at high batting average picks, when you look at some of the linebackers that we've seen go in the first round over the last several years, they've all been impact players,” said Jeremiah. “We saw it with Devin Bush last year with the Steelers. We saw it with Devin White last year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, we've seen it with (Leighton) Vander Esch what he's done with the Cowboys while he's been out there.

“These guys have all played at a high level and been very impactful, and Jim Schwartz with what he wants to do and asking some of those guys to be able to run and cover, I think [Murray’s] a great pick.”

As for the Eagles’ perceived lack of interest in the position, not so fast.

Lost in those 40 years of LBs wandering in the desert that has been the Eagles’ first-round decisions is the context of each individual move. Take a player drafted recently that Jeremiah mentioned in Vander Esch.

An NFL source confirmed to SI.com that the Eagles were very very interested in Vander Esch back in 2018 but he came off the board at No. 19, way out of the range of the Eagles, who were fresh off a Super Bowl LII championship and at No. 32.

Christian McCaffrey is another example of that at a position that is always dismissed when it comes to Philadelphia and the top of the draft. If the star Carolina running back would have fallen to No. 14 in 2017, he would have been the Eagles selection.

When it comes to “devalued themes," It’s always about the player, not the position.

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