Worst Iggles Draft Ever?
Worst? No. Most disappointing? Quite possibly.
The stars were aligned ideally for the Birds to restock and rearm without having to rebuild. 5 picks in the first 87 of the draft. In a deep draft, almost impossible to screw up.
And the Iggles screwed it up. How? In trying to prove that they’re the smartest guys in the room, Andy Reid and newly-minted GM Howie Roseman outsmarted themselves.
Here’s the anatomy of the Big Green Epic Fail:
1st Round: They’re sitting at # 24. They trade up 11 spots, everyone thinks to take S Earl Thomas of Texas, an ideal replacement for the dear, departed, Brian Dawkins, but the smartest guys in the room outsmart everyone and take pass-rushing DE Brendan Graham of Michigan instead. In and of itself, the pick’s OK. But…there are two safeties in this draft regarded as future Pro Bowlers, and pass-rushing DE’s have the biggest bust factor in the draft. Worst of all, they trade both picks in the third round plus their own #1 to go up 11 spots for a guy who might’ve been there at #20 or so, a far less expensive proposition. Had they stayed at #24, CB Kyle Wilson of Boise State, probably the best man cover corner in the draft is waiting for them. He goes #29 to the Jets.
2nd Round: They’ve still got those two picks in the second round, #’s 37 (The ‘McNabb’ pick) and #55. How could they go wrong? Well, first, the ordinarily tight-lipped Iggles have been drooling over all-purpose back Dexter McClusker of Ol’ Miss, who they view as a cross between Brian Westbrook and Dave Meggett. So much so that Sal Palontonio of ESPN is openly reporting about how they’ll take him in Round 2. Oopsies, cardshark GM Scott Pioli of the KC Chiefs, formerly of the Super Bowl Patriots, ups and takes McClusker one pick before the Birds.
Shocked and shaken, the Eagles take Nate Allen, free safety out of S. Florida. A good pick, but a distant third to the two free safeties who went in Round 1.
Now, here’s where the draft falls apart. Eagles are on the clock at #55. They have their pick from among an impressive second-tier group of cornerbacks, offensive linemen, and pass-rushing outside linebackers. I’m a draftnik, so I can name them, if you want. They proceed to trade down, first to #59, then to #71, and finally to #86. Thirty-one bleeping spots. During that time, every CB of note, every highly-ranked OL, and the remaining cream from the WILL LB spot are all taken. So, in order to ‘get back into the third round’, the Eagles trade out of the second round in exchange for a bunch of 4th and 5th round picks. To make matters far worse, they use their third round pick on another DE who had, at best a 5th round grade by most teams. A ‘try-hard’ guy with ‘limited physical skills’ by the name of Daniel Te’o-Nesheim out of the University of Washington. What a train wreck. One that wouldn’t even have been necessary had Reid hit on at least one of several DL busts in recent years, including Victor ‘Coach, I’ve Got a Hangnail’ Abiamiri from Notre Lame; pass-rushing demon Robert Smith from McNeese State, who was so bad he never played a single down for the Birds; another Notre Lame refugee, Trevor ‘Man Without A Position’ Laws; and, of course, recently-traded Chris Gocong, who coaches now admit is better suited for a 3-4 defense than the Iggles’ 4-3.
Reid explained his draft by saying that their principal goal was to upgrade speed to get pressure on the QB. First of all, you’ve got to do more than one thing in the draft. Second, you needed at least one CB starter after trading away Sheldon Brown, and you didn’t get one. You needed at least one OL of starting caliber, and you didn’t get one even though you were perfectly positioned to get virtually everything you needed in the draft.
While draftniks, including Mel Kiper and the like, gave the Eagles high marks for their 4th and later round picks, those picks are a bunch of question marks w/o a clear or even likely starter among them:
CB Trevard Lindley of Kentucky-solid SEC CB, but coming off a serious leg injury, which is precisely why he’s available in Round 4. If healthy (a much bigger ‘if’ than you might think), then he’d figure into the CB rotation.
OLB Keenan Clayton of Oklahoma-a project at the WILL (the side opposite the TE) position. Superior speed but undersized. Would likely have been available later. Can rush passer and maybe cover a little. Liability vs the run.
TE Clay Harbor of Missouri State-Andy Reid knows how to draft TE’s, and Harbor put up real good numbers vs. less-than-stellar competition. Probably a better in-line blocker than Celek. I like the player, but not a real position of need.
QB Mike Kafka of Northwestern-They had to draft a developmental QB, and I think that Kafka was just about the best one out there. Plus, if he doesn’t get along with the coaches, at least he’ll have that ‘Kafka-esque sense of alienation’ to fall back on.
DE/OLB Ricky Sapp of Clemson-At one point, he was considered an early round selection. That was before a serious injury and some alleged ‘character’ issues. If he’s healthy and if his head is screwed on straight…both big ifs.
WR Riley Cooper of Florida-The kind of player you would expect to find in the 5th round. Could have a future as a 4th or 5th WR. Could replace Hank Baskett on the roster. Fundamentally sound, good production, but did not play in a pro-style offense and does not have breakaway speed. Still, could surprise, a la Brian Finneran.
RB/FB Charles Scott of LSU-Is he a fullback or a fat running back? Looks like a practice squadder.
MLB Jamar Chaney of Miss. State-Productive, looks the part, not considered especially instinctive. An excellent pick at this point of the draft, and I think he makes the team.
DT Jeff Owens of Georgia-Here’s how Pro Football Weekly describes him: “Lazy, unmotivated, injury-stricken underachiever”. Hear he loves his momma, though.
SS Kurt Coleman of Ohio State-Appears to be ‘just a guy’.
So, in a draft that could have yielded up to 5 future starters, you end up with just two and a bunch of question marks.
Early Verdict: Both Reid and Roseman like to be the ‘smartest man in the room’. While their moves in the 2010 draft may have been ‘clever’, they outsmarted themselves.
Draft Grade: C-Plus for what they got. D for what they got vs. what they could have gotten.
Tags: Andy Reid, NFL Draft, Philadelphia Eagles
Can’t argue with any of it. With luck, will permanently end the “E-A-G-L-E-S” chants during Phillies games.
He turned that single 55th 2d round pick into 6 players: 5 players in 2010 and a pick in 2011. That increases the odds significantly of getting at least a couple of starters from that single pick. I think that was pretty damn clever. On quantity of players drafted, Reid did great, A+. You can’t judge the quality of the players for at least a year.
Um, he turned three picks (a first and two thirds) into one single pick. He MAY get lucky on the 4th or 5th rounders. The guys who went off the board between 55 and 86 were the meat of the draft, and Reid should have had three picks there. A buncha picks in the later rounds (the Eagles already had two 4th rounders going into the draft) are far less likely to be better than a buncha picks in the earlier rounds.
We’ve long since learned that quantity and quality are two different things.
If you look at the combine grades for those 4th-rounders, you’ll see grades that should have put them in the 7th round. The problem isn’t the quality of the players necessarily, but the consistent overreach of drafting them too high.
Since I dislike the offense under Reid, I consider this good news, because he won’t get fired until he finishes two consecutive seasons at or below .500. This dreadful draft hastens the day.
The Eagles came into the draft with 10 picks and walked out with 12 players and a pick for next year. In any draft there are first round busts and later-round pro-bowlers. The more players you get; the better are your odds at getting a good one. You can’t reasonably judge this draft’s talent until next year.
In regards to “combine grades” all I gotta say is that Mike Mamola was a combine stand-out. Show me where combine grades correlate linearly with on-field performance, and then we can talk.
There are far more busts in the 4th & 5th rounds than in the 2nd or 3rd rounds. The NFL tracks this stuff and, as Casey Stengel said, you can look it up.
You can only have 80 players on their camp roster regardless of how many draft picks you make. All the more reason to opt for quality over watered-down quantity.
Look, opinions about the draft are just that–opinions. But arguing that somehow 12 players, most from lower rounds, are better than 10 draft picks, of which 5 are in the first three rounds, doesn’t strike me as an opinion with any logic to it. Especially when some of the draftees had free agent grades assigned to them.
Everybody seemed to agree that this year’s draft was really deep, so 4th and 5th rounders may be better this year than in other years. Ultimately, it all depends on how the players perform on the field, so we’ll see. Only time will tell that.
What is your criteria for a good draft? Number of starters? Number of players that make the team?
BTW, it seems that the consensus among sports writers is between a B to A- grade for this draft.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/moving_the_chains/Rounding_up_Eagles_draft_grades.html
My criteria would be (a) difference-makers and (b) production. The number of players making the roster is important as long as they’re active (as opposed to being on the inactive list each week) and as long as they fill a role, rather than just being kept around b/c a coach hates to admit he made a mistake.
I would’ve been OK with the Birds’ draft if they were merely, or largely, drafting for depth. But this should have been a transformational one for the Eagles, one where they could have drafted at least five significant contributors, and they mismanaged it.
I find Domo’s grade hard to figure since he wrote a piece today about how the Birds are still woefully short at CB:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/eagles/20100426_Paul_Domowitch__Eagles_didn_t_tackle_cornerback_issues.html
and since Les Bowen wrote a piece about the Birds’ failure to add OL depth:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/eagles/20100426_Where_s_the_beef___Birds_pass_on_offenive_linemen__confident_in_filling_needs_from_roster.html
I could deal with Reid’s ‘I know better than you’ arrogance had he actually won a Super Bowl. I know I’m ascribing to him thoughts that he may not actually have, but I just can’t help but feel that he’s more interested in doing something precisely b/c others think he should go in another direction rather than doing what makes sense on the surface.
Sometimes simpler is better. This year’s draft formula was so simple that Reid just couldn’t bear to follow it.
Maybe they think that with all those DEs rushing the QB they don’t need anymore CBs. 🙂
Yup, that’s what scares me, and what I see as Reid’s hardheadedness. . Plus, with so little depth at CB and OL, they don’t really have a Plan B concerning injuries. Especially scary since CB Ellis Hobbs and OL’s Jamaal Jackson and Stacy Andrews are returning from serious injuries. No reason they HAD to be so short-handed had they orchestrated the draft differently.
For my part, I’m happy with how my Texans did with the draft — not the least because of the fact that they drafted one of my former students, whose first game in a Texans uniform will be the first NFL game he has ever attended.
Well, that is pretty cool.