ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter joined the John Kincade Show for his weekly hit (Wednesday at 8:20am) to discuss all things NFL. It was a great interview because its the first time the guys talked to Schefter post NFL draft when Howie Roseman and the Eagles stole the show. But in the 3rd round the Eagles moved up with the Cardinals via a pick swap because of a tampering scandal revolving around Jonathan Gannon getting hired in Arizona.
We’ll start out with the actual draft. The Eagles took Jalen Carter at pick 9 but it turns out the team wasnt sold on Carter until the actual day of the draft.
“When you start, you start with Jalen Carter, and the interesting part is that I don’t really think – and they went back and forth on him, back and forth on him for a long time. It was not like it was a a slam dunk decision, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re going to take Jalen Carter.’ But What was key, was the day of the draft, that Thursday, Jalen Carter got on the phone with Nick Sirianni and other Eagles officials and told them how much he wanted to be there and how important it was and what kind of version of Jalen Carter they would be getting. And I believe that the call he made that day, in addition to the way the board fell, were instrumental in him winding up there.”
But the big nugget from the interview revolved around the tampering case with Gannon and the Cardinals. Jamie Lynched asked Schefter if there are some annoyed employees in the Novacare complex about how Gannon handled his business and Schefter thinks its the case.
“The interesting part about it would be this, I think it impacted a lot of peoples’ lives. Vic Fangio, for example, probably would not have taken the Dolphins defensive coordinator job and would be the defensive coordinator in Philadelphia today if everything was on the up and up. And so, it didn’t just impact the Cardinals and their job with Jonathan Gannon, it impacted others as well,” Schefter told the guys. “I think everybody knows – in any line of work – if they’re on an expiring contract or they’re under consideration, they still have responsibilities to their employer to finish the job the right way… In this particular case, I just think the Eagles weren’t comfortable with the information that they learned Jeffrey [Lurie] brought it up to Michael Bidwill, and this is where the organizations wound up.”