Should The Eagles Stick To Their Draft Strategy Guns?
The Eagles had an outstanding regular season, a strong postseason despite a disappointing end in Super Bowl 57, and are now poised for a productive offseason. Over the past year, the franchise has been run as well as any in professional sports, and it’s a very welcome thing in Philadelphia. Now, though, as the team attempts to maintain success following a Super Bowl appearance, Howie Roseman and company have an interesting set of options when it comes to handling the upcoming NFL Draft. With so many free agents, and a couple of aging veterans still under contract, the draft is a super important part of this offseason for the Eagles’ front office if they’re going to keep this team near the top of the NFL.
The way I see it, there are 3 general strategies in the draft that could be chosen to help reach that goal. I’ll call them the Eagles approach, the kind of Eagles approach, and the non-Eagles approach. There have been certain pillars of the Eagles’ draft strategy and team building under Howie Roseman that have served the team well during the past couple of seasons. The Eagles approach to roster creation has always revolved around the trenches; the offensive and defensive lines are of paramount need. This has been a proven strategy in Philly, and top lines on either side of the ball were major reasons why the team went to the Super Bowl this past season. With so many of those players available to be brought back though, would it be wise to keep drafting at those same positions, especially as high as 10th overall? It’s a fair question, and one that will need to be answered ahead of late April.
Let’s move on to the kind of Eagles approach. If you can say that there is a secondary goal of Howie Roseman year in and year out behind building strong lines, it wouldn’t be crazy to say it is stockpiling draft assets to create team flexibility. While the lines are more important to this front office than draft picks, they still love to build up their pick portfolio when preparing to bring in new talent. So, with that in mind, the kind of Eagles approach would be to move on from the #10 overall pick in favor of multiple picks later in the draft or in future drafts. With a lot of free agents, and a chance that the team pays Jalen Hurts a king’s ransom this offseason, maybe grabbing a collection of mid-round picks would be more beneficial to sustaining the Eagles’ success than drafting a singular offensive tackle or edge rusher at 10. It would be less like Howie, but could certainly be argued that it’s the right approach.
The final strategy that could be employed is the non-Eagles approach. This is the one that fans clamor for year in and year out to little or no avail. It’s the most exciting potentially, but it’s also the most volatile when it comes to sustained success in the NFL. It would be drafting an exciting, athletic skill position player at #10 overall, a WR, or Corner, or RB (hello, Bijan Robinson). Don’t hold your breath, folks. The Eagles have rarely drafted players like that in the 1st round of the draft under Howie Roseman, and when they have, they have gotten burned by it. I know Robinson, or another exciting guy who touches the ball on offense or makes big plays on defense might be intriguing, but it would be very uncharacteristic of the Eagles to pick one of them. Howie Roseman’s track record says that sticking to his guns is probably the smart play for this offseason, and every offseason.
