Looking at the Eagle’s linebacker draft philosophy may be the most interesting one I have done so far as I personally started off biased towards Howie’s view of under-prioritizing linebackers. Most teams like the Eagles just don’t have linebackers on the field as much as before as “base” defense is down to 25% of snaps, meaning their third linebacker is off the field on most plays. But the rise of freakish athletes that allow offenses to exploit corners that are too small and linebackers that are too slow makes the need for hybrid defenders even more important.
Below shows how the Eagles have invested in different positions in the draft, with number of picks used on a position on the left and amount of draft capital (higher picks counting more) on the right. The Eagles, true to their word, do invest little in the linebacker position, ranking 18th in picks and 23rd in draft capital used.
Some Eagles linebacker stats
PFF just released their rankings of linebacking units and the Eagles predictably came in near the bottom at 29th out of 32 teams with damning linebacker pass defense stats:
In 2020, the Eagles linebackers almost exclusively ranked poorly against other linebackers in the league:
- Against the run, TJ Edwards and Alex Singleton are tied for 30th in the league and Nate Gerry is 43rd
- In pass coverage, Edwards is 29th, Duke Riley is 47th, Singleton is 55th, and Gerry is 83rd
- In run stop percentage, the lone bright spot for the Eagles is Singleton ranking 11th in the league, with Edwards at 48th, Gerry at 52nd, and Riley at 90th
But we don’t need a ton of stats to show that the Eagles linebacking unit isn’t great.
Linebacker draft analytics
Looking at player value data from drafts between 2005-2020, linebackers are a position like offensive line, wide receiver, and tight end where the ability to draft really good players is still relatively high through the second round. The first chart below shows how quickly player value drops by round measured by player Approximate Value (AV) – linebacker player value degrades, on average, by 28% after the first round (5th lowest) and a cumulative 45% after the second round (6th lowest).
The second chart shows a boxplot of expected player value for linebackers by round (the box displays the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile of player value). In the first round, the median linebacker will be near a 60th percentile, or above average, starter. In the second round, the median linebacker is above the 40th percentile but the top end of the box (75th percentile) is still near 60. A 60th percentile linebacker would include players like Rashaan Evans, Zach Cunningham, Harold Landry, and Bud Dupree. A lot of good linebackers are drafted through the first two rounds.
Putting names to the data, the next chart shows the top 25th percentile linebackers by player value and which pick was used to draft them on the x-axis. Of the top 26 linebackers, 16 were drafted in the 1st round and another 8 were taken in the second.
And the linebacker position is still important, contrary to Howie’s very public position and something that may change as Sirianni is used to having stronger linebackers. Sharp Football Analysis has some great data on offenses exploiting linebacker mismatches here. The key point is that an offense increases its Expected Points Added (EPA) from -1.2 to +1.8 per 60 plays when a mismatch is present, defined as a LB lined up against a RB or WR. And this improvement exists whether the mismatch is exploited in the play or not. When the mismatch is exploited in man coverage, EPA per 60 plays increases to +19.4, an over 20-point swing vs. no mismatch plays. Mismatches, while still present on a minority of plays, can change a game just based on the expected value from them. Linebackers that can cover the increasingly more common freak athletes are becoming more essential, not less.
Eagles draft history of linebackers
During Howie’s tenure, the Eagles have drafted 13 linebackers, with 3 taken in the first three rounds and have also drafted linebackers very poorly. Only one, Jordan Hicks, was an above average starter and he was taken by Chip Kelly in the one non-Howie draft year. One other, Mychal Kendricks, was a good but not great player. It’s too early to judge last year’s 3rd round pick Davion Taylor but he was another head-scratching Howie pick as Davion had limited football experience and was greatly over-drafted. Beyond that, the Eagles have largely relied on UDFAs and day three picks similar to their cornerback draft strategy.
While the Eagles defense has been good over the past several years, it is primarily due to the defensive line (explained in the defensive line draft post here), with both the secondary and linebackers being a drag on the defense. Below shows all teams’ defensive DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average, a great metric by Football Outsiders to show a team’s success on plays vs. the league average) vs. cumulative linebacker Approximate Value. A defensive DVOA is better as it becomes more negative which is why the y-axis is reverse sorted. The Eagles data points are highlighted in red and show that the Eagles defensive rating has declined to near league average over the past three years with poor output from their linebackers.
The Eagles maybe more than most teams have embraced hybrid defenders which is shown with picks like Nate Gerry and JaCoby Stevens, who were both college safeties. And the Eagles heavily used safety Malcolm Jenkins as a linebacker, with Jenkins lining up as a linebacker on almost 50% of snaps. The below chart is an updated version of the above one with Malcolm included in the linebacker value stats which puts the Eagles more in-line with the loose trendline of the league. It is not totally valid to reclassify Malcolm as a linebacker as he did play true safety and even slot corner on half his snaps, but is illustrative of what the Eagles more accurately perform like and why there has been a noticeable hit after Jenkins’ departure.
The 2021 draft and looking forward to 2022
The Eagles greatly improved their linebacking unit for the 2021 season but did so with the signing of Eric Wilson in the offseason. But Wilson is on a one-year deal and is much better in coverage (23rd rated linebacker) than run defense (87th rated) and run defense is an underappreciated area of need for the Eagles defense. Beyond Wilson, the Eagles continue to hope their “quantity-over-quality” approach to linebacker will pay off and one of Taylor, Singleton, Rashad Smith, Shaun Bradley, or rookies Stevens or Johnson will outperform their draft pedigree.
I mentioned my bias coming into this was agreeing with Howie’s down-prioritization of linebacker and I do agree to an extent. You do not need three, or even two, great linebackers – even one would be an impact and would help mitigate the growing tight end and running back mismatches being used against linebackers. Jordan Hicks was largely allowed to leave because of injury concerns, but he is exactly the type of player the Eagles could use. I think Howie is right in the type of player he wants at linebacker, focusing on highly athletic players that are often hybrid defenders. Of course it would be great to have three great linebackers but you have to choose where to use your priority draft picks and cannot invest everywhere. And there are only so many Travis Kelces and George Kittles and Alvin Kamaras and Austin Ekelers that will be faced each week.
But Howie is wrong in almost never using a priority pick on linebacker. Similar to the draft analysis on cornerbacks, Howie solely focuses on hope that a day 3 pick will turn out which has under a 25% chance of happening in the 4th round and almost 0% chance after the fourth. Looking back at recent drafts, here are some alternate picks the Eagles could have made to address LB:
2020 Draft:
Round 1 – at 21 when Reagor was picked, Patrick Queen (9 AV in his rookie season) and Kenneth Murray (8 AV) were available.
Round 2 – at 53 when Hurts was selected, Jeremy Chinn (a safety but used exactly like Jenkins was and generated 14 AV) was available.
2019 Draft:
Round 1 – at the Eagles original pick at 25 before trading up for Dillard, Jahlani Tavai (4 AV on only 50% of snaps played) was the next best LB available in a down LB year. Tavai has not been good his first couple of years.
2018 Draft:
Round 1 – available at 32 before the Eagles traded out of the spot with Baltimore was Darius Leonard (14 AV per season average), the top rated LB in the last 10 years
Looking forward, the Eagles do not have the position figured out as Eric Wilson is only on a 1-year deal and I believe expectations are too high on what he will bring given his liability in run defense. This is another position that the Eagles should increase investment in. I am not saying what the Eagles will do, but what they should do, and using at least an early day 2 pick to provide an answer to the league’s growing offensive mismatches is absolutely needed.
Previous posts in the analyzing the Eagles draft philosophy series:
“The Trenches” Part 2 – Offensive Line