The Eagles offensive line was historically injured in 2020 and a repeat of that would be a statistical surprise, so expect a dramatic improvement in 2021. But also a look at the long-term line, what to expect, and why continued investment is needed. Read more
As the picks were being made during the fourth round of the 2021 NFL Draft, Howie Roseman anxiously watched each one from inside the Eagles “war room”. Read more
A look at what Jalen Hurts will be for the Eagles in 2021 and which data matters (and which doesn't). There isn't a bigger impact to the Eagles than if Hurts can ascend to be their long-term starter. Read more
A look at the Eagles top twelve cornerbacks since 1980 and where they were drafted. The Eagles have struggled recently with good corner play but the history shows our best corners have been top picks. Read more
A look at the Eagles well-known issues with drafting receivers. But to not rehash what everybody knows, this includes what metrics the Eagles need to look at evaluating receivers and why I am very bullish on 2021. Read more
An analysis of the Eagles controversial draft philosophy on linebackers, where Howie has been vocal in de-prioritizing the position against others. Read more
An analysis of Howie's "quarterback factory" approach and what the data shows on chances of finding the QB that teams need. Also, a quick look at Howie's dealing of QBs. Read more
The Eagles fanbase is excited about Gannon's arrival and defensive scheme replacing Jim Schwartz's. But what does his history show on developing the Eagles weakest position group? Read more
The Eagles have not actually prioritized O-line in the draft, despite Howie's focus on the trenches. Long-term, elite starters have allowed them to focus elsewhere but investment is needed. Read more
True to Howie's word, the Eagles do prioritize the trenches (on the D-line) and have also drafted very, very well, especially with their top picks. Read more
An analysis of the Eagles cornerback draft philosophy and performance using historical draft value data. In short, they are paying for trying to get by on the cheap. Read more
A look at the Eagles 2021 draft picks with what past player value analytics tells us on their potential. Plus, Howie looks to have taken advantage of some draft inefficiencies this year. Read more
My Eagles draft board, using priority positions and players likely to be targets based on prior team meetings and interest or testing numbers. Updated post draft with a quick analysis. Read more
Football Outsiders which is the source for the Adjusted Games Lost data: “2020 Adjusted Games Lost”
If you have read my prior articles, you know a few key points I have made on the Eagles offensive line:
Howie claims to invest in the trenches but in his tenure it has been true for the defensive line only – the Eagles are 26th in the league in draft capital spent on the offensive line vs. 7th for the defensive line.
From 2010-2020, they only made four day 1 and day 2 picks on the OL with the fireman being a huge miss and Dillard being a big question still.
Their draft failures and lack of investment in the OL have aged the line and left them with poor depth.
There are a few often-repeated statements on the Eagles that I absolutely hate, one of them is that “the Eagles have a top 5 line IF they stay healthy”. The reason I hate it isn’t because it is untrue, but because it seems to ignore or excuse the lack of investment in the offensive line. (Another OL-related view I hate is “you can find offensive linemen / centers late in the draft like Kelce” which is true if you like 1 out of 425 odds which is what the Kelce pick amounts to regarding his value vs. draft position).
Heading into the 2021 season, I believe two things on the offensive line:
The OL will be better because it would be almost a statistical impossibility to be as injured as it was last year.
The OL needs to a be priority in the upcoming drafts to return to “great” as they don’t have the players needed post Kelce/Brooks/Lane.
The Eagles line can’t be as injured again…
Above I mentioned the work that The Michigan Football Analytics Society has done and they showed that the correlation of age and injury is not strong. It makes intuitive sense that older players get injured more but it doesn’t actually show up in the data that way. So, the Eagles line is old but that doesn’t totally explain 2020’s injuries and isn’t a good predictor of 2021.
Below shows the Eagles Adjusted Games Lost due to injury (AGL) for just the offensive line over the past five years. The total games are shown and then separated into games lost by OL starters and backups.
Year
Total OL AGL
OL Starter AGL
OL Backup AGL
2020
71
48
23
2019
25
9
16
2018
8
4
4
2017
15
15
0
2016
13
9
4
The number of OL combinations (14 in 16 weeks) the Eagles had to use in 2020 is well known. But to put numbers to the OL injuries, in 2020 the Eagles:
Lost 60% of total OL starter games to injury – their intended starting OL lost 48 games out of a total 80 “starter games” (5 linemen * 16 games or 80 total starter games).
They lost another 23 games from backup linemen.
This means for an average game in 2020, the Eagles played with 3 backups on the line and of those backups, 1.4 were third-string or lower.
Below shows the total AGL for every team over the past 5 seasons (blue dots) with the Eagles AGL highlighted (green dots) with the average games lost due to injury per team between 70-80 games per season (grey line). The Eagles OL games lost due to injury is also added (green line).
With 71 games lost to injury in 2020, the Eagles OL by itself would have been 20th in the league in games lost due to injury, between IND (72.9 games lost) and MIA (65.7), and not much lower than the average games lost across the league at 83.
This just can’t repeat.
Or, more technically, 2020’s level of injuries are an outlier and the chances of this repeating are exceedingly low and we should expect a reversion to the mean. Could there be something driving this that isn’t just randomness? Sure, the medical staff, poor training and conditioning programs, the individual players genetics, the curse of building taller than William Penn returning. But it is really probably just ridiculously bad luck.
Do I expect the line to be totally healthy this year? Who knows, but most likely not. I do think their depth is better – Herbig graded out very good in run and pass blocking, Driscoll was thrown in as a rookie and performed well including a memorable game against Chase Young, and Landon will be great (although we will see how much he plays and when). And I trust that their use of depth will be better – no longer is JP around and blindingly obvious to everybody except the Eagles that he was done.
But the line still needs to be invested in…
Below shows the total OL value measured in Approximate Value (AV) for every team since 2010, with the Eagles highlighted in green. The average value for offensive lines is the grey line and generally around 43 AV per season. The Eagles have been consistently above 50 AV and in the top 5 of the league except for 2012, 2015, and last year.
Assuming a return to relatively normal health,the Eagles offensive line should be better than average in 2021. Based on historical AV by starter and assuming another step up in improvement for Mailata as he has more experience, a rough projection would have the Eagles offensive line in the 43-46 AV range:
LT
LG
C
RG
RT
Mailata 6-7AV
Seumalo 6-7AV
Kelce 12AV
Brooks 10AV
Johnson 9-10AV
The issue is post the Kelce/Brooks/Lane period, the Eagles don’t have the players needed to return to a great line. So much could change, free agents could be signed and players could surprise, but looking at historical comparables gives you a view on what could be expected. Making the following assumptions…
Mailata continues to improve and is close, but not equal to, Lane
Landon Dickerson becomes a top 5-7 center
Seumalo largely remains what he has been
Herbig and Driscoll are solid but unremarkable borderline starters
…you get a future Eagles line between 33-42 AV which is a significant drop from what they have been used to. You just don’t easily replace Kelce/Brooks/Lane.
LT
LG
C
RG
RT
Mailata 8-9AV
Seumalo 6-8AV
Dickerson 9-11AV
Herbig 5-7AV
Driscoll 5-7AV
Maybe Herbig and Driscoll exceed expectations but one is an UDFA and the other is a 4th rounder. Maybe Seumalo has another step up in him but he is 27 and has been very consistent in output. Maybe Herbig who had top 10 grades over the last four games last year really is another undrafted find and elevates to a solid starter. Maybe Dillard succeeds and Mailata moves to RT (I think of all positive scenarios this is the most likely). I’m already assuming Dickerson stays healthy and is a top center which has some risk. But it is unlikely that all of the upside across the line here pans out which is what would be needed to get close to what the Eagles have been over the past 5 years.
The Eagles will need another elite starter along the line. In my prior post on the offensive line draft history and philosophy, I said the Eagles will need to draft a tackle or guard (or both) upcoming. If you do not follow Matthew Alkire, you should – he has the earliest and best view on 2022 draft prospects and think he nails it with his vision for the Eagles below, pointing at prospects like Kenyon Green and Tyler Linderbaum as long-term, potential elite linemen.
Defining a future line using any metric like AV is an oversimplified view and as I have said before, the line is the position that is more the sum than its individual parts. But clearly the Eagles do not have a line of the future at this point. So, expect a noticeable improvement this year but we need to invest in upcoming drafts at guard and tackle.
Zech McPhearson Might be the CB Fans Have Been Asking For
Saturday May 1, 2021 12:00 PM Cleveland Ohio:
As the picks were being made during the fourth round of the 2021 NFL Draft, Howie Roseman anxiously watched each one from inside the Eagles “war room”. The information, limited as it always is, coming out is that the Philadelphia Eagles GM wanted to draft Zech McPhearson in the third round, but was convinced by others in the room to be patient and that Zech would still be there for them with their fourth round selection. So, he nervously watched and waited as the picks got closer to their selection at 123. Adding to his trepidation, it was not a secret that the Eagles entered the day needing and or wanting to draft one or more of the remaining corners after having not selected one during the first two days. Alas at approximately 12:57 PM, Howie made the call “Zech what’s going on man, its Howie Roseman, I’m the GM of the Eagles, How you doing?” Zech replied “I am doing good, how are you?” Back to Howie, “I’m doing alright, what do you think, you think you’re ready to be picked right here?,” Zech calmly replied “ yeah I’m ready for it, this is a moment I’ve been waiting for my whole life” And with that, Howie and the war room exchanged high fives and fist bumps, and the draft card selecting Zech McPhearson with pick 123 in the fourth round was submitted.
Side note, Zech immediately endeared himself to the Philly faithful, by 1:25 PM on draft day, less than 30 minutes after being selected by the Eagles, he had already posted a picture of himself on Twitter rocking a #25 Eagles jersey while celebrating at his family’s draft party.
And speaking of his family, have you heard or read about the bloodlines? The Mannings’, Watts’ and dare I say Kelces’ may not have the resume’ the McPhearsons’ bring.
Zech has seven siblings( 6 brothers and 1 sister) . All seven have played a sport at the collegiate level. Every brother played football, one was selected in the MLB draft but followed in Zech’s footsteps and is now is on the Texas Tech football team. His sister plays collegiate soccer. And not to be outdone, his parents were respected athletes as well. His father, Gerrick, played defensive back for Boston College and his mother, Kim, played running back and offensive line for the former National Women’s Football League team, the Baltimore Burn.
So what was it about Zech that stood out and had Howie Roseman covet him the way he did outside of the family accolades? In short, many things.
Start with his play. He was the top cover corner for his Texas Tech Red Raiders earning himself All Big 12 honors. It does not take long to see why while watching film on Zech. The ball skills and how competitive he was in every facet of the game are evident. Whether it was fighting for fifty-fifty balls, tackling a runner, or his overall physical play at the line, he shows up on every down. He is blessed with great athleticism and has shown effectiveness in changing direction and speeds. The hard work earned the respect of his peers in the locker room, as he was voted team captain by his teammates. The Eagles are counting on his reputation and hard worker to follow him to the pros.
The Eagles would also like to see the success he had against top tier talent translate over to the pro game as well. Pro Football Focus ranked Zech the third highest cornerback versus power five wideouts over the last two years. Only Patrick Surtain II and Derek Stingley Jr were higher.
Zech described the competition he faced at his May 12, 2021 press conference “Going against the some of the top wide receivers and some of the best Quarterbacks in the country, it definitely has prepared me a lot for this level. Every week you’re going against a guy, thats what you want at corner, you want to be going against somebody thats going to bring a challenge to the table and it was a real good experience being down at Tech for two seasons and being able to do that.”
All of those skills were on full display at the Hula Bowl. Which opened a lot of eyes in NFL circles around the league.
“That was a big piece of the puzzle, what he did out there, his performance in the Hula Bowl out in Hawaii,” vice president of player personnel Andy Weidl said on the Marks & Reese show on WIP this offseason. “Our scouts getting that information and spending that time with him personally and sharing that with us went a long way in us taking him in the fourth round.”
Rex Ryan who coached him in the Hula Bowl back in January stated
“The kid jumped out,”Ryan said to NBC Sports Philadelphia “In 1-on-1s, he jumped out in that, he jumped out on the field. He’s not the biggest guy, maybe 5-11ish, around that, but he can run and, man, he can shadow and mirror and he has ball skills. To me, I was like, ‘Hell, this kid looks pretty damn good to me.’
Zech commented about his own performance at the game “The Hula bowl was real fun. I had a good week on the field and it played well for me going into the draft.” That it did.
In addition to the Hula Bowl, the 2020 season was also a very successful one for McPhearson. He lead the Red Raiders with 4 interceptions and 2 fumble recoveries. He also had 53 tackles (47 of which were solo) including 1 for a loss. Zech added 1 touchdown and 6 pass deflections to his impressive stat sheet as well.
Playing cornerback opposite Darius Slay is the ultimate goal, but one of the quickest ways for a rookie to get on the field is via special teams. He was a standout at Texas Tech, including blocking two kicks over the course of the season. Exceeding at special teams is also something Zech prides himself in, as well as his versatility to help out wherever he can for his team.
Per Zech (special teams) “it’s a part of the game I value really highly” Whether it will be as an outside cornerback, a nickel/slot, or as a special teams player, one way or another Zech may make an immediate impact on the field this season. He just wants an opportunity so he can realize his dreams and those of his new team.
Flashback to New Years Eve
December 31, 2020 1:56 PM Zech McPhearson Twitter page:
“After many discussions with my family, I have decided to declare for the 2021 NFL Draft,” he wrote. “Thank you to Coach Wells and the entire staff at Texas Tech for everything you’ve done for me these past two years. I am excited for this next chapter in my life and ready to see what God has in store for me next.”
The Eagles are just as excited to see what Zech has in store for them. And maybe, Zech McPhearson might be the CB fans have been asking for.
David
Follow me @PhlEagleNews
Thank you for reading
PFF College: Highest Grades CB in single coverage
1- Tre’vius Hodges-Tomlinson TCU 89.1 2- Marcus Jones Houston 88.9 3- Patrick Surtain II Alabama 88.6 4- Zech McPhearson Texas Tech 85.7
PFF: Highest Graded CB vs Power 5 WRs 2019 and 2020
1- Patrick Surtain II 91.3 2- Derek Stingley Jr LSU 91.0 3- Caleb Farley VA Tech 90.0 3- Zech McPhearson TTU 90.0
What Can We Expect Jalen Hurts to Be in 2021?
By far, the number one question for the 2021 Eagles is what will Hurts be? Not only is this important to their season, but maybe more importantly long-term, it will dictate whether the Eagles need to use their massive draft capital to trade up or for a quarterback or if they can use 2 or 3 first round picks to dramatically up-skill other positions.
I wrote previously on metrics that matter for different positions, including quarterback, and here will give a view on what we could expect from Hurts. While I spend a ton of time on analytics on this site, I don’t believe in models to predict an individual player’s season as the best models I’ve seen people promote have R2s of 0.60 (and usually much lower) which means they only are able to explain 60% of a player’s performance. But data can intelligently inform an opinion by removing noise and centering on what matters.
Here are five key things to consider when looking at Hurts’ first year and what he can be in 2021:
1. Hurts’ poor rookie rankings don’t matter
Everybody knows how poorly Hurts graded out in his first season:
Graded 40th out of 41 QBs by PFF in total offense with a grade of 56.2 (just behind new Eagle Nick Mullens)
32nd in the league in clean pocket passer rating at 86.2 (between Andy Dalton and Nick Foles)
And last in the league in completion percentage over expected (CPOE) and 29th in expected points added (EPA) below (from the great site RBSDM.com)
The history of QBs starting with his numbers and actually turning into a good QB is not good. Since 2005, twelve QBs have had a CPOE of -6 or worse with only one, Matt Stafford in his rookie season, becoming an above average QB (the rest were the very uninspiring list of Brady Quinn, Jamarcus Russell, Kyle Boller, Derek Anderson twice, Matt Hasselback, Trent Dilfer, Kellen Clemens, Akili Smith, Andrew Walter, and Bruce Gradkowski).
The issue is that Jalen’s sample size is way too small with only 185 dropbacks and 4 starts (3.5 starts really). If you pull the same EPA and CPOE chart using only the first four starts for the starting-quality quarterbacks drafted in the last 10 years, below is what you get. Note that for both EPA and CPOE, a higher number is better, so the top right are QBs with a better completion percentage above expectations and a higher expected points added while the bottom left are QBs with poor completion percentages over expectations and low or negative expected points added per play.
Jalen is now in very good company with Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Andrew Luck who also looked bad in their first four starts. Does it mean he will be Jackson, Allen, or Luck? No. But nobody should look at data on a chart using a QB’s first four starts and make a declaration. Are there issues he needs to clean up? Absolutely. But way too much is made of these and other similar metrics without considering further context on his accuracy and ability to drive points.
2. Hurts had an elite college CPOE which does matter
Josh Hermsmeyer (@friscojosh) at FiveThirtyEight has a great article here that shows college CPOE is a better predictor of success in the pros than other metrics. From his article:
The test of a good metric is that it is stable over time (for example from college to the NFL) and that it correlates with something important or valuable. Completion percentage over expected is slightly more stable than other advanced metrics like QBR. CPOE is also the best predictor of NFL yards per attempt. Since yards per attempt correlates well with NFL wins, and winning is both important and valuable, we’ve found a solid metric.”
Josh Hermsmeyer, “The NFL Is Drafting Quarterbacks All Wrong”
CPOE adjusts completion percentage for the depth of target (to penalize QBs who only dump off and reward deeper throws) and strength of the defense. In Hurts’ senior season at Oklahoma, he had the fourth highest CPOE among all Power 5 QBs since 2011 at +11, behind Russell Wilson, Burrows, and Justin Fields (who I still believe the Falcons, Panthers, and Lions will regret passing on…) Again, does this mean he will be Russell Wilson? No, but it does show that his rookie season stats are probably the anomaly and as he gets more reps, we should expect his CPOE to return to his norm.
3. Hurts’ mobility is more valuable than most realize
Everybody knows Hurts’ primary rushing stats from his limited action last year:
354 rushing yards on the season, with 296 yards in weeks 13-17 behind only Lamar Jackson (430 yards)
11 explosive runs in weeks 13-17, again only behind Lamar Jackson (15)
5.8 yards per rush on 51 total attempts in weeks 13-17, 4th among QBs in the league behind Jackson (7.7 ypa), Russell Wilson (6.1 ypa but on only 7 attempts), and Ryan Tannehill (8.8 ypa, also on only 7 attempts).
Projecting these to a full season gets silly as Hurts was on pace for over 1,100 yards and 40 explosive runs. He won’t run that much as those would be all-time great season numbers, but even half of this pace would put him in the top few QBs in the league, with only Jackson (1,105 yards) and Murray (773 yards) ahead.
But mobility is more than running – what isn’t written about as much is Hurts’ ability to extend plays. He had a 3.94 second time to throw (TTT) while under pressure, 3rd best in the league behind Lamar Jackson and Deshaun Watson. Below shows average time to throw while under pressure vs. allowed sack rate with him being better than the league at avoiding sacks and giving himself more time to create a play. Again, Hurts is showing up with the familiar group of other QBs that extend plays.
I mentioned in previous posts the Football Outsiders research on how pressure affects quarterbacks, with DVOA dropping a massive 108 points on average when a QB is under pressure. When you look at the past several years of data on the QBs with the best under-pressure performance, the same names show up – Mahomes, Dak, Rodgers, Lamar, Deshaun, and Brees. Again, the QBs that can extend the play show up here (Brees not so much because he extends plays, but because he is just really good and will destroy a blitz, consistently over a 100 passer rating against pressure throughout his career).
Hurts did not consistently turn his scrambles into positive plays in 2020, however, finishing with a 59.1 passer rating against pressure. His primary issue was a way-too-high turnover worthy play rate (TWP) of 6.7%, 7th highest in the league. But, if he cuts down turnovers, Hurts’ ability to extend the play will benefit the offense greatly.
4. Hurts has shown an ability to generate explosive plays
In his limited play time last year, Hurts showed that he has the willingness and ability to generate explosive plays which is increasingly important for offenses today. In 2020, Hurts showed the following:
The highest average depth of target (aDOT) in the league by a significant margin at 10.1 yards (Drew Lock was next at 9.7).
A passer rating of 77.1 on throws beyond 20 yards with a big time throw percentage of 24% (defined as a ball thrown with good placement and timing down the field).
In the intermediate 10-19 yard range, Hurts had an even better passer rating of 101.4.
Hurts was near league average in explosive passes but was elite on explosive runs. Below shows QB explosive passes (Y axis) and runs (X axis), with Jalen near Lamar Jackson when projecting explosive plays per 600 dropbacks.
Below is a second view, totaling explosive passes and runs together with Jalen second in the league on a full year projection. Looking at Sharp Football Stats metrics on team explosive plays (here), the Eagles were 22nd in the league while Wentz was starting and moved up to 12th in the league in weeks 13-17 when Hurts started.
Again, Hurts may not keep this full-year pace, but even a percentage of what he showed in 2020 is extremely valuable.
5. Hurts must protect the ball better
Hurts’ completion percentage needs to improve, particularly in the short-range as explained above, but the biggest area of concern for me is his turnovers. Unlike his CPOE which is at odds with his college history, turnovers unfortunately cannot be explained away as they have followed him throughout his career.
Below shows his interception rates – except for his sophomore year at Alabama, Hurts has consistently been above a 2% interception rate.
Season
Attempts
Interceptions
Int %
Fr – Ala
382
9
2.4%
So – Ala
255
1
0.4%
Jr – Ala
70
2
2.9%
Sr – Okl
340
8
2.4%
Yr 1 – PHI
148
4
2.0%
For the Eagles last year, interceptions did not just come on deep passes either, they came in all ranges with two beyond 20 yards, one in the 10-19 yard range, and one in the 0-9 yard range. If this rate maintained, it would put him in the bottom third of the league in interceptions. Below is just one example from the week 16 Cowboys game where Jalen just made a really bad decision trying to keep a play alive and throwing into 2-3 defenders (his earlier interception in the Cowboys game intended for Fulgham is the same, really poor decision-making). This is Wentz-like without the same arm strength.
Perhaps worse than his interceptions is his fumble rate which has also followed him from college. Ironically, his very first snap at Alabama was a fumble and he went on to total 11 his freshman year. At Oklahoma, he ended his college career with 9 fumbles and Lincoln Riley specifically calling it out. In 2020 with the Eagles, Hurts again had 9 fumbles in only 185 dropbacks, which is an off the charts fumble rate.
Below shows all interception and fumble rates for all 2020 QBs with over 100 dropbacks. You want to be in the bottom left and Hurts is light years away, amazingly at almost 5% of dropbacks with a fumble. CJ Beathard with only 114 dropbacks is next closest at 2.63% and then Lamar at 2.41%
Hurts’ decision-making and ball security is, to me, by far the biggest concern and what will wreck his career.
What are the keys to Hurts’ 2021 season?
Hurts gets criticized a lot for missing receivers on plays (all QBs do), a weak arm (arm strength doesn’t equal performance), and accuracy (I think he improves here as described above). Based on the data, there are three key things to watch with Hurts in 2021:
Does the turnover rate drop? By far my #1 thing to watch with Hurts is the turnover issue. He projects to 25-30 total turnovers over a full season and if he cannot significantly improve it, the Eagles will be looking for another QB next year as he just won’t be able to win.
Does he improve short yardage accuracy? Sirianni’s offense will absolutely utilize more shorter throws. When he came to the Eagles and explained his offense, one of his key statements was “Another thing we like to do is get the ball to our players within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage, get the ball to our players running”. Last year in Indy, Philip Rivers had his second lowest aDOT for his career at 7.6 yards, down from 9.0 yards in 2019. Andrew Luck also showed a marked decrease in aDOT under Sirianni at 8.1 yards in 2018, down from 9.0 in 2017. Short yardage, for some reason, was Hurts’ worst range with only a 72.6 passer rating and a PFF grade of 42.6. As explained above, I expect Hurts to improve his accuracy and CPOE across the board, but it will become even more important in this offense on short throws.
Does he continue to generate above average explosive plays? More shorter throws will not mean explosive plays are not important – last year the Colts were 5th in the league in explosive plays. Hurts’ ability to generate with his legs and with extending plays and taking shots downfield is his differentiator and where he needs to provide value.
I said earlier I don’t try to create predictive models for individual players, but I do think data can show what a player may become. In my post on offensive metrics, I showed how CPOE+EPA and rushing yards per 600 dropbacks is a good model for quarterback value. I think Hurts could fall in the 13-16 Approximate Value (AV) range, which would put him in the top half of the league. My assumptions and reasoning for this are the following:
Hurts’ poor rookie CPOE is an outlier given his history in college and even if he moves from a CPOE of -8.3 to just league average, it lifts him to the middle of the league.
Hurts’ ability to create with his legs alone is elite and even assuming a dramatic reduction in his pace from his rookie season (better OL protection, better WRs), it is not hard to see him running for 700-800 yards.
The Eagles offensive line will be better just because repeating the number of games lost to injury would be a statistical surprise – they were so ridiculously injured last year and the injuries piled on top of each other. As mentioned above, better protection has a giant impact on DVOA.
Below shows rough placements of what Hurts could be assuming he improves accuracy only to league average and that he does hit 700-800 yards of rushing. Both of these are very reasonable expectations and I expect Hurts to be in the top half of the league.
7/14/21 Update:
If you don’t follow Thomas Petersen (@thomasrp93), you should – he has great video breakdowns of the Eagles. He just did a video on every Hurts throw from 2020 which is absolutely awesome and provides a ton of context on the good and bad of Hurts this past year.
If you have 61 minutes, go watch this. This supports a lot of the above with my key takeaways:
The OL was awful (especially Pryor, Toth in limited time, and even Mailata wasn’t great in the Dallas game). The pressure caused a lot of the issues that showed up on stat sheets.
The number one thing for Hurts to improve on is getting the ball out slightly quicker – you will hear Thomas say this frequently in the video.
In general, I don’t agree with the common concerns on Hurts’ arm strength. The one thing that is related is when he does not step into his throws, there are a bunch of throws where he is just using his arm, usually do to pressure and sometimes due to rollouts, but it is noticeable (as with many QBs) the difference in Hurts when he isn’t setting. Improved OL play will help here but this is something for Hurts to clean up.
And unrelated, I am more optimistic on Reagor after watching these – Reagor’s separation abilities are underappreciated (which I wrote about separately).
The Eagles Top 12 Corners Since 1980
The recent history of the Philadelphia Eagles cornerback situation has not been one worth ranking, nor watching. Outside of the magical 2017 season, the backfield has been a mess. The Eagles have not used any of their first round draft picks to address the position since 2002, and the other resources have only proven to be a Band-Aid on an open wound. As a fan of football, I enjoy watching a shutdown corner face a top wideout on a weekly basis. There is something real and raw from watching two top athletes battle it out Mano Y Mano. I miss seeing these battles from the Eagles. I would like to see them focus on the cornerback position more going forward. Drafting a top CB every 4–5 years should be prioritized. The lack of draft capital being used was apparent when I reviewed the history of the past 40 years at the position, as was the lack of talent.
Eric Allen (7 Seasons) 2nd RD 1988 34 INT
Troy Vincent (8 Seasons) 1st RD 1992 (Eagles signed him 1996) 28 INT
Lito Sheppard (6 Seasons) 1st RD 2002 18 INT
Sheldon Brown (7 Seasons) 2nd RD 2002 19 INT
Bobby Taylor (9 Seasons) 2nd RD 1995 19 INT
Herman Edwards (9 Seasons) undrafted 1977 33 INT
Asante Samuel (4 Seasons) 4th RD 2003 (Eagles signed him in 08) 23 INT
Roynell Young (9 Seasons) 1st RD 1980 23 INT
Jalen Mills (5 Seasons, 1 was S/CB hybrid) 7th RD 2016 5 INT
Ronald Darby (3 Seasons) 2nd RD 2015 6 INT
Mark McMillian (4 Seasons) 10th RD 1992 8 INT
Nolan Carroll (3 Seasons) 5th RD 2010 3 INT
Admittedly, interceptions do not tell the entire tale of a cornerbacks job, but that has always been one of the stats that corners are judged by. In recent years more stats such as: passes defended, QB rating when ball is thrown at them, and coverage ratings have told a bigger story. For the sake of space and time for this article I have listed the interception totals in the rankings, but I did not include the new stats as they were not available for players pre 2010.
I think the rankings show a direct correlation between using first and second round draft capital and having top cornerbacks on your roster. The top 5 corners of the past 40 years in Eagles history were all drafted in the first 2 rounds, they also played out their first contracts and received a second or third which only enhanced the value of the original draft pick.
The only outliers on the list are Asante Samuel selected in the 4th rd (who would have been much higher on the list had he played more than 4 seasons in Philadelphia) and Herman Edwards who went undrafted.
*** Season & Interception totals are both calculated while playing for the Eagles ***
The Analytics of the Eagles Draft Philosophy Series: Wide Receivers
I had two big issues getting to this analysis:
First, I hate writing about widely known things like the Eagles being bad at drafting wide receivers because everybody knows it already. Making this hopefully interesting is a bit tougher than other positions.
Second, beyond “Howie has been bad at drafting WRs”, my ultimate point that the Eagles actually overdraft wide receivers relative to other positions will make me look like a hypocrite with DeVonta this year. I love the DeVonta pick despite publicly wanting a CB for months as I never expected him to be there when the Eagles picked. I am more bullish on his rookie season than most as I wrote in the post below:
The Eagles have wasted pick after pick on receivers and I hope to show why they were wrong based on stats, not just say “they shoulda drafted DK”. But on to the analysis…
The Eagles draft history of wide receivers
These first few charts show what every Eagles fan already knows. This first chart shows how much draft capital each team has spent on WRs over the 2010-2021 period, with the Eagles being the team that spent the 6th highest amount of draft capital on WRs.
But when you look at the player value returned from the draft, the Eagles drop to 24th in the league.
Combining these two charts into a quadrant of draft investment vs. value, the Eagles are one of the worst in the league, sitting there with the Jets and Browns and Texans. As an aside, Houston was a surprising one to me here given they got Deandre Hopkins and Will Fuller, but their ten other WR picks have provided almost no value, generating 20 combined career AV. As a comparison, Riley Cooper generated 18 AV total in his six seasons. So the Texans used ten picks to make one Riley Cooper…
The Steelers have clearly been the best or luckiest or both in the league, getting Juju Smith-Schuster and Chase Claypool in the 2nd round, Emmanuel Sanders in the 3rd (although he played his best years in Denver), and Antonio Brown famously in the 6th. They are doing things right and when I get to what matters for receivers below, their picks make more sense.
Looking at the Eagles individual WR picks, only one has exceeded their expected draft position value – friggin Riley Cooper. Reagor, Hightower, and Quez all have so much of their careers left and I would expect at least Reagor and Quez to move up on this list and provide good value. And DeVonta could turn the entire picture around if he lives up to what I think he could.
What should the Eagles change with their WR draft philosophy?
Draft better.
It’s just not more complicated than the Eagles need to hit on more of their WR picks. A lot of teams miss on receivers and there is no crystal ball, but the Eagles have overthought receivers (up until this draft) and don’t listen to modern analytics that are best for projecting NFL production. Fast receivers are great but speed alone just isn’t a good enough predictive metric of success. PFF has a great article which highlights three things that matter: ability to separate, to catch balls, and to generate YAC (link below):
Below is a snapshot of WRs from the 2020 season that had more than 65 receptions (to filter down to feature receivers) showing their percentile ranks on separation (yards of separation at the time the ball arrived), catch %, and yards after catch (all data is from Next Gen Stats here). The highest rated receivers have at least one elite trait and usually two.
And when comparing separation, catch, and YAC ability to player AV value, the majority of top rated receivers by value also show above average skills.
How have the Eagles drafted receivers historically? They have largely drafted receivers that can’t separate, catch, or generate yards after catch. Below shows the top current receivers (Fulgham included even though he is not an Eagles draft pick) as well as Matthews and Agholor. The other draft picks including Huff, Hollins, Hightower, and Quez do not have enough data to generate the stats.
There’s a big difference between criticizing a pick and criticizing the process or philosophy that led up to the pick. I try not to second guess picks themselves as the hit rate on draft picks is so low and it is easy to find better picks after the fact. But I will criticize bad thinking or process that led to a pick, regardless of it it worked out or not.
It is fine to evolve a draft philosophy over time – it’s expected – but Howie seems to have a completely different one every year. This year was best-player-available, last year was “Are they fast? Are they healthy? Do they love to play?”, the year before was college production. I love the Eagles investment in analytics but “fast” is not analytics. Just a few examples to show the criticism of the process:
2020 Draft – Jalen Reagor: Reagor, slotted by most as a second rounder, is taken ahead of Justin Jefferson and Howie initially points to Jefferson being a slot receiver and Reagor’s play speed as the reasons. As stated above, looking at that year’s slate of picks it is easy to see Howie’s primary focus was pure speed (just pull up our picks RAS profiles). I really like Reagor and think he will be good (more on that below), but Howie’s logic makes no sense and misses what matters. Jefferson played the slot in college to get Chase and Marshall on the field, not because he couldn’t play outside. And Jefferson has near elite separation abilities.
2019 Draft – JJ Arcega-Whiteside: JJ is famously taken ahead of DK Metcalf (and Terry McLaurin). DK failed the Eagles medical test, but they then forced JJ and extolled his “ability to play above the rim” and “red zone ability”. JJ’s known negatives were “separation ability, lack of explosiveness, and stiff hips”. Howie took a player that cannot separate or generate yards after the catch.
2014 Draft – Jordan Matthews: This one is tougher. Matthews was probably the consensus next rated wide receiver when the Eagles picked and was viewed as having the size (6’3″) and speed (4.46) they wanted. He was a fine pick, I don’t over-hate on him, and it feels a bit like Monday-morning quarterbacking to immediately look at Davante Adams or Jarvis Landry or Allen Robinson that all went within the next 10-20 picks. Matthews draft profiles were all generally good and I spent a lot of time re-reading them. And when you do, you start seeing some of the concerns that showed up in the NFL:
While his 40 speed was good, especially for his size, his short-area agility (3-cone and shuttle) were mediocre.
A lot of his college production came on swing passes
Lacks lateral speed and innate quickness
Questions on if he has the ability to separate from NFL-caliber press
Looking forward
But I am very optimistic moving forward. DeVonta is that good and fits all the criteria that are important – there wasn’t a receiver better than him at getting off press coverage and separating… he dropped nothing (2.5% of passes)… and he had double the amount of YAC than the next closest college receiver. Smith is going to dominate. I don’t bet, but I would take the over on his rookie yards with my kids college money.
And when I showed the Eagles receiver stats above, Reagor shows all the tools – 95th percentile among receivers last year in separation and 76th percentile in YAC. He needs to clean up his drops but the biggest issues with Reagor last year were that Wentz was historically awful and the scheme didn’t use Reagor to his strengths at all. Can he get better? Sure. But he was open a ton last year and not thrown to or over/under thrown. I criticized the thinking of picking Reagor and not Jefferson because Howie’s reasoning no made sense – Jefferson did not have slot-only skills and he had elite separation which is what matters more than s a 40 time. But I would not be surprised if Reagor’s and Jefferson’s careers are much, much closer when it is all said and done.
The Eagles receiving corps is going to surprise people in 2021 and it will suddenly change the picture of the Eagles draft success here.
Previous posts in the analyzing the Eagles draft philosophy series:
The Analytics of the Eagles Draft Philosophy Series: Linebackers
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.
Eagles use of draft picks and capital by position
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:
“Passes targeting Philadelphia linebackers generated a 113.9 passer rating and were open targets 66.1% of the time — both far from ideal figures.”
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).
Amount of player value drop by position and round
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.
LB player value by round
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.
Top LB Draft position and value
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.
Eagles DVOA vs LB AV
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.
Eagles DVOA vs LB AV with Jenkins adjustment
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 Analytics of the Eagles Draft Philosophy Series: “The QB Factory”
Yes, the factory… I already wrote on cornerbacks and both the OL and DL, and wasn’t looking forward to analyzing and writing on the quarterbacks for several reasons. But first, yes, the Eagles do invest comparatively more than the league in QBs, using both more picks (8th in the league) and more draft capital (6th in the league). As shown below, over the past ten years the Eagles invest more than the league average in only two positions: QB and D-line.
A few things explain this. First, the Eagles have publicly stated what their positional priorities in the draft are, with Howie saying the Eagles will always invest in the trenches (although in the OL post, I show that is not actually true during his tenure) and that the Eagles want to be a quarterback factory. Second, the Eagles used so much draft capital to move up and draft Wentz that it blew a giant hole in their draft capital. The chart below shows the Eagles draft capital by year, factoring in the number of picks and the expected value of these picks.
The black dashed line above shows the average draft capital by team – above the line and a team has more capital than the average team and below the line, they have less. The Wentz trade took four draft picks and the Darby trade sent another 3rd round pick in 2018. Add in other trades and the Eagles went four of five years around the Wentz selection with significantly decreased draft capital.
Some General QB Draft Data
It is well known that drafting quarterbacks is really hard – it’s effectively a casino. More than any other position, you really have to draft them high and for the honor of using a high pick, teams have a 25% chance of getting the quarterback they are hoping for. The chart below shows the success rate of all QBs drafted since 2005 with the Y-axis showing the percentile grouping the QB is in based on their Approximate Value metric. A full third of 1st round QBs taken are busts with the rest being around average. After the 1st round, the chance of a bust is above 50% with practically no elite or above average QBs taken through the remaining rounds.
This next chart shows the same data with a different view, this time showing a boxplot of the same player value percentile by round. If you aren’t familiar with boxplots, the horizontal line in the middle of the box is the median value, the top end of the solid box is the 75th percentile, the bottom end of the solid box is the 25th percentile, and the “whiskers” (thin lines extending above and below the box) show the remaining outlier values.
In round 1, the median QB percentile drafted is just under 60, which typically includes QBs with some decent years but eventually back and forth between starter and backup. Some QBs around the 60th percentile include Andy Dalton, Sam Bradford, Mark Sanchez, Vince Young, Alex Smith, and Joe Flacco (it is freaky that so many on this list made their way through Philly, I swear I did not cherry-pick names). The quarterback names that teams are hoping for when they draft a quarterback in the first round all have percentiles above 80 – Matt Ryan (82), Aaron Rodgers (87), Russell Wilson (92), Andrew Luck (92), Deshaun Watson (98), and Mahomes (100). As shown above, these players above the 80th percentile are only 25% of QBs drafted.
Once you move to the second round, your median value for a QB is under 40 and only 25% of QBs drafted have a value percentile above the low 40s. To put some names to this list, each of these QBs are around the 40th percentile: Kevin Kolb (40), Brock Osweiler (39), and EJ Manuel (34). You get the point.
The Eagles QB Draft History
Since 2010, the Eagles have drafted six quarterbacks, with one first round pick (Wentz), one second (Hurts), a third (Foles), and then three throw-away day three picks.
This next chart shows all QBs drafted with the x-axis being by pick location and the y-axis being by player value (AV per year) and the size of the dot being the player percentile. The Eagles QB picks are the red circles and I highlighted them as most are almost impossible to see.
The Wentz era ended badly, but he grades out as a 79th percentile quarterback including his atrocious 2020 season. As shown above, there aren’t a lot of QBs higher than Wentz and given the low chance of successfully drafting a QB, the Eagles did comparatively well. In 2016, fifteen QBs were drafted with only Wentz and Dak being successful QBs (some would also put Goff in this list). The Eagles were right to take a shot on a QB and Wentz vs. Foles debates aside, the Eagles won a Super Bowl.
My issue is with the Eagles using so many lower picks on quarterbacks. When looking at the number of picks after the first round or number of day 3 picks, the Eagles are near the top in the league. With such a low hit rate in the later rounds, these are wasted picks – Kafka, Barkley, and Thorson are all picks that would have been better used elsewhere.
Howie Dealing QBs
While this series is more about analyzing the Eagles positional draft strategy in particular, you can’t talk about QBs without looking at the trades. The Eagles have been active in dealing QBs and I believe this partly contributes to Howie’s obsession with drafting QBs.
In 2012, the Eagles dealt Kevin Kolb, a career 9-12 starter, to Arizona for Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and a 2nd round pick that turned into Vinny Curry.
In 2015, in the one non-Howie led Eagles year, traded Foles, a 2nd, and a 4th to the Rams for Sam Bradford and a 5th.
Also in 2015, the Eagles traded prior 4th-rounder Matt Barkley to Arizona for a 7th which became LB Joe Walker, a one-year player for the Eagles.
And in 2016 after Teddy Bridgewater’s injury left the Vikings without a QB, the Eagles traded Sam Bradford to Minnesota for a 2017 first (used to take Derek Barnett) and a 2018 4th (Josh Sweat).
The Eagles “won” the balance of these trades, mostly because of the silly returns they got for Kolb and Bradford (but the Eagles also paid a lot to get Bradford). Like I wrote in the offensive line draft analysis, I wonder if some of this history affects Howie’s strategy, thinking they can continually draft QBs and either have them work out or deal them for an outsized return. But a strategy based on other teams being dumb (Arizona with Kolb) or desperate and dumb (Minnesota with Bradford) is not a valid strategy. Add in that drafting Hurts behind Wentz may have affected Wentz (which we will never know and at the end of the day, is more an indictment of Wentz that he couldn’t handle it in my opinion) and the Eagles pride in themselves being a “quarterback factory” is really misguided.
Looking Forward to 2022
While I hate the Eagles draft strategy around QBs, you need a top-end QB. Looking forward, it is no secret that the Eagles are giving the 2021 season to Hurts but if he does not succeed, they will use their built-up draft capital to acquire another QB (either in the draft or via trade).
In the prior articles in this series I listed where the Eagles need to use their top picks moving forward, with cornerback being an absolute need in 2022. If the Eagles instead have to pivot and use these picks on a QB, it will blow another hole in their draft capital similar to the middle of this past decade when they took Wentz.
I was against taking a QB high this year (still am), but it is rare to be in the top 10 in the draft and teams need to use that opportunity to take a QB. Look at the Falcons, I think it was a mistake to not take Ryan’s replacement this year with them being at 4 which you never know if you will be back at even if you aren’t a good team. If Hurts doesn’t work out with the worst case of the Eagles being “good enough” to not have a high pick, it will take another large draft capital investment when they could have taken Fields.
Previous posts in the analyzing the Eagles draft philosophy series:
What Can We Expect from Jonathan Gannon on the Eagles Secondary?
Yesterday Jonathan Gannon was exactly what Eagles fans have wanted in his press conference as he spoke consistently about using players to their strengths and not forcing a scheme.
“We’re not going to box ourselves into one scheme… We’re not hardheaded, it’s my way or the highway. That’s not what this is about. It’s about serving the players and getting them to hit their ceiling.”
Jim Schwartz got a lot of criticism, some of it was justified and some not, for the defensive philosophy he brought to the Eagles of relying on the front four to generate pressure, rarely blitzing, and having a fairly simple defense. In a weird way, it fit because he did not have corner talent before Darius Slay — playing off covered for lack of CB speed and dropping seven in coverage gave some extra help. But he also did not use his CBs to their strengths as Avonte was used on the outside despite his inability to play there and Rasul, who many fans wanted to see more of, was asked to run with WRs despite his 4.6 40 speed instead of using his physicality and trying him at safety.
Gannon’s team performance
I have written often about the need for the Eagles to prioritize CB (here and here) and have worried about excessive trust in Jonathan Gannon’s defense to magically improve the Eagles pass coverage, but wanted to look at his history to see what we can expect. Below is Gannon’s history with the Vikings as assistant defensive backs coach and Colts as defensive backs coach:
There’s a lot to be excited about as at both MIN and IND his secondaries dramatically improved after he got there. With the exception of MIN in 2016, his teams were top half of the league and top-10 in three of his seven years. Digging in deeper to look at the personnel, my enthusiasm and how it translates to the Eagles tempers a bit as there is clearly a talent gap.
Below shows the top three CBs by snap count for MIN including the two years before and after Gannon’s tenure. One thing that sticks out is Gannon has just had more talent than what he has on the Eagles, having multiple first round picks in Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes, and Terence Newman.
For IND, the history may be more instructive as Gannon was now the defensive backs coach (not assistant coach) and it is easier to compare similar talent. Pierre Desir, a 4th round pick with typical 4th round performance in his first four years in the league, broke out in 2017 and 2018, allowing career low QB ratings against and completion percentages allowed and generated an elite 15 AV over two seasons. Kenny Moore, an UDFA and second year player under Gannon also allowed a sub-80 passer rating and generated 15 Approximate Value (AV) over the 2018–2020 seasons. As comparison, Slay generated 4 AV last season (on pace for 5 over a full season) and in 2018 the Eagles top-playing CBs of Rasul, Avonte, and Darby generated 3–4 AV.
What does this mean for the Eagles?
My top thoughts for what Gannon means to the Eagles in 2021:
The secondary will be better than 2020 — Gannon’s history shows he can get more out of the talent that he does have. And while I have focused on corners above, the Eagles have clearly upgraded coverage skills in other positions with the addition of Anthony Harris and Eric Wilson.
But temper your expectations — I hear a lot that Gannon’s increased use of zone will cover for our corners and we don’t need top corners. That’s just not true. The Eagles still only have one outside corner. And Gannon’s defenses in IND that were missing the multiple top-end corners that he had in MIN showed when they went up against the top receivers:
Davante Adams 7/106/1 AJ Brown 4/98/1 Allen Robinson 7/101/1 Julio Jones 8/128/1 DeAndre Hopkins 9/106/1 and 6/94/2 Michael Thomas 12/128/1
The NFC East receiving units got better this offseason and the Eagles still do not have the personnel to contain them. Despite being better, we will likely have several games that feel too familiar with WRs streaking down the field against us. To think Gannon’s scheme will magically neuter CeeDee and Gallup and Amari and McLaurin and Julio and Michael Thomas and Mike Evans this year using our current CB talent is absolutely unrealistic.
It will be interesting to watch the use and progression of players — I am not the biggest Avonte fan, mostly because he is the perfect representation of Howie’s strategy of “investing on the cheap” for CB and expecting it to work out. But in the right use, he can be a contributor — how will Gannon make use of his strengths? And what do we have in Zech, who has all the explosive and agility measurables but is a rookie?
The Eagles still need to desperately invest in corner — I do expect Howie to bring in another CB to man the outside because not doing so will rely on either Avonte Maddox to magically grow or get better or Zech McPhearson to perform as a rookie. As I wrote here, Howie needs to dramatically change his draft philosophy on corner and make it a priority in 2022.
So, be optimistic and appreciate the energy and approach that Gannon brings, but give him better tools.
The Analytics of the Eagles Draft Philosophy Series: The Trenches Part 2 – OL
I covered the defensive line in the last post here, which the Eagles invest more in than the majority of the league and have also drafted very well with their top picks. On the offensive line, the story is very different as the Eagles have actually under-invested compared to the league, have not drafted well with their top picks, but have gotten very lucky later in the draft (which I believe has created an unrealistic expectation amongst many in the fan base — more on that later).
Below is a recap of their draft investment by position area which shows the number of picks and the amount of draft capital (weighting higher picks more) that the Eagles have used on different position groups and where they rank against the league:
Eagles draft history on the O-line
The Eagles are below the league average in use of picks (14.3% vs. 16.4%) and draft capital (15.3% vs. 17.0%) spent on the offensive line, ranking 26th in the league in both. In the 2010–2021 period, the Eagles used fourteen picks on the OL, five in the first three rounds, but with more draft misses. And three of these fourteen picks were in the past two drafts, with no offensive linemen taken at all in 2017, 2015, or 2014. The Eagles generally draft tackles and sign guards, with half of the past decade’s picks being used on tackles and only two non-day three guard picks. Multi-year interior starters like Brandon Brooks, Wisniewski, and Evan Mathis (all second or third round picks) came via free agency.
As opposed to the defensive line where seven top picks over the past decade yielded Cox, Graham, Barnett, Curry, Bennie Logan, and this year’s Milton Williams, prior to this draft the Eagles four OL picks in the first three rounds only yielded Lane Johnson and Seumalo as starters. The fireman is one of the Eagles biggest draft misses in the Howie era and then there is Dillard… I personally have hope in Dillard, but he is a question mark that has under-performed without a clear path to playing time this season.
Another difference from the defensive line is how good (or lucky) the Eagles have been in the later rounds. Kelce is not only one of the best centers over the past decade, but between 2005–2020 the Eagles found the 9th best draft value vs. expected across the entire league from over 4,000 draft selections (measured as actual player value vs. what is expected from that draft position). Add in Vaitai in the 5th round who has had an up and down career but played a critical role in the 2017 season, Mailata in the 7th who appears to be their future LT, Dennis Kelly in the 5th who went on to have some good seasons after the Eagles, Jack Driscoll last year in the 4th who played very well in his rookie season, and UDFA Nate Herbig who graded out as the 11th best guard over 79% of snaps last season and should, at worst, be a solid backup moving forward.
I mentioned earlier that the Eagles success (luck) with late round OL picks like Kelce and the presence of Jeff Stoutland leads to an unrealistic expectation that the Eagles can just take later round linemen and it will work out. This is a fan view, not a Howie view — while I showed the Eagles have under-invested in the OL by not using many picks on the line, they have not relied on late round picks as a draft strategy as they do with cornerback. The Eagles have used high picks, but just haven’t hit on them. Kelce is such a rare find and to assume it can be easily repeated is ignoring history and assuming the Eagles have some cheat code on drafting linemen. They don’t. Below shows the round-by-round success rate of IOL and tackles — after the third round, both have around a 30% chance of being even an average NFL player, with above average picks having below a 20% chance and elite players being almost non-existent.
With Kelce, Lane, and the addition of Brandon Brooks (free agency) and Jason Peters (trade), the Eagles line has consistently been a top-10 line in both pass protection and run blocking. Having such a dominant line with locked-in starters gave the Eagles the opportunity to prioritize other positions in the draft.
The criticism here is that the Eagles did not draft soon enough for OL replacements as the aging of the line, the consistent injuries the past several years, and the lack of depth has become obvious recently. Yes, the Eagles have had some bad luck with injuries, but when it happens year after year, it isn’t variance, it’s reality. I cringe when I hear “we have one of the best lines if it stays healthy”… The line requires more investment.
The 2021 draft and looking forward to 2022
I gave my post-draft thoughts on what value this year’s picks could be expected to bring here, but love the Landon Dickerson pick. There is his injury risk, but I will go on record that I think it was a smart pick by the Eagles as he has the potential to be an elite center post-Kelce. The Eagles need to prepare for the post Brooks / Lane era though. Looking forward with their current roster, the Eagles not only don’t have a line comparable to what they have been used to, but they don’t have five starters on the roster today:
It is not easy to predict what their future line will look like as there are several options. If Dillard shows promise, does Mailata eventually switch to RT? Does Dickerson settle in at C or G? Can either Herbig or Driscoll show they are starters? And the Eagles will clearly be active in trades and free agency, especially next year when the cap situation is better. But projecting based on what we know today, Dickerson, probably Mailata, and maybe Seumalo are the only ones that are likely part of the future starting line. Driscoll and Herbig we hope can be starters, but most likely are depth pieces and clearly not yet replacements for Brooks or Lane. Le’Raven Clark was just signed as a swing tackle. The rest on the above depth chart probably don’t even survive this year’s roster cuts.
To put numbers to it, the top five offensive lines in the league (CLE, GB, TB, LAR, NE) combine for between 45–57 Approximate Value (AV) per season across the five positions, averaging 9–11 AV per lineman (if you want to understand AV better, I have a deeper description of it here). The Eagles starting lineup for 2021 should be very good and in the 42–45 AV range if you project to a full season and assume Mailata takes another step up. Looking past Kelce, Brooks, and Johnson, assuming some (but not massive) improvement, and projecting Landon as an above average center, the OL would only be in the 30–40 AV range. Maybe Herbig and Driscoll could surprise, but one is a 4th round pick and the other went undrafted where elevating to an above average starter doesn’t happen often.
Projecting AV is just illustrative and, more than any other position group, OL is more the sum than its individual parts. But the above is a realistic scenario that highlights decreased strength on the right side of the line. The future line just isn’t good enough.
The Eagles won’t let this happen though. In the upcoming drafts, expect one or more high picks to be used on the line. A high pick on a tackle is very likely unless Dillard shows his potential and Mailata moves to the right side. The Eagles don’t generally draft guards high but I would not be surprised to see this change with another day two pick.
Previous posts in the analyzing the Eagles draft philosophy series:
The Analytics of the Eagles Draft Philosophy Series: The Trenches Part 1 – DL
Here is the second article (the first was on cornerback) analyzing the Eagles draft philosophy and what is right or wrong based on historical data.
When asked about using five of nine picks in the 2021 draft on linemen, Howie said “Right or wrong, as long as I’m here, that’s going to be the priority.” While Howie has seemed to shift his draft philosophy annually (valuing college production several years ago, then a focus on athletes last year, or reaching to fill positions vs. sticking to their board), he has been outwardly consistent on valuing the lines.
Below shows draft stats from 2010–2021, with the first set showing the pure number of picks used by position group and the second showing the amount of draft capital used by position group. For each, how the Eagles compare to league averages is shown.
Despite his statements, besides quarterback defensive line is the only position group where the Eagles have actually invested more than the league average in the draft.
Eagles draft history on the D-line
On the D-line, the Eagles both use more picks (22.4% of their picks vs. the league average of 18.0% of picks) and more draft capital (20.7% vs. 18.7%) than the league overall. The Eagles rank 2nd in the league in number of picks used on DL and 7th in draft capital.
This surprises nobody as the Eagles have used 22 picks in this time period on DL, drafting at least one linemen every year except 2011 and making multiple picks in most years. Additionally, the Eagles have drafted very well on the defensive line with no egregious draft misses in the first three rounds. Curry and Te’o-Nesheim are the two lowest graded R1–3 picks — Curry had a couple of good years, particularly 2017, and Te’o-Nesheim only lasted one season in Philly before moving on to Tampa where he has had a couple of decent years.
Below shows the full list of Eagles draft picks over this period sorted by draft slot with player AV value and percentile (what performance percentile they are in for their position), along with the expected player percentile from that draft slot. On the defensive line, the Eagles have either been lucky or good (or both) as they have succeeded by getting value on basically all of their top picks, including a long-term elite player in Fletcher Cox, with no notable draft misses. Day 3 picks have generally not been of value as is expected from day 3 picks. As a preview, the story is very different for the offensive line…
As opposed to CB where I explained here the Eagles heavily rely on lower percentage day 3 picks and reclamation project signings or trades, the top end of the draft has been a priority for DL:
Round 1: Graham, Cox, Barnett
Round 2: Curry
Round 3: Bennie Logan, Daniel Te’o-Nesheim, and Milton Williams this year
Day 3 Notable Picks: Josh Sweat and Beau Allen
On top of the draft, the Eagles have also prioritized DL in free agency and trades, adding several linemen that have had significant playing time (Michael Bennett, Ridgeway, Hargrave, Chris Long, Malik Jackson, Jernigan, and most recently Ryan Kerrigan).
The Eagles defensive line has been a strength, with elite or near-elite pass rush and upper-half run defense grades over the past five years. Their high draft picks of Cox, Graham, and Curry consistently appear in the top grading below:
The 2021 draft and looking forward to 2022
I gave my post-draft thoughts on what value this year’s picks could be expected to bring here, but think the long-term focus on the defensive line is absolutely correct as well as the prioritization in this year’s draft. The DL is still good but aging and is frankly too expensive, with the four projected starters consuming 26% of the entire salary cap and all in the top eight cap hits on the team for 2021.
Milton Williams is the only DT in the draft this year with an 85+ grade in pass rush and run defense and brings flexibility inside and out. Marlon Tuipulotu could add the run-stuffing defender that has been missing recently — I make comparisons of Tuipulotu to Bennie Logan, who have similar builds and measurables, were both generally ranked somewhere in the 7th to 13th best DT prospect (although Tuipulotu was ranked as high as 3rd by some before falling due to back concerns), and were discounted in the draft some due to being more run-defenders than pass rushers. Throughout his career, Bennie’s defenses gave up 50 fewer rushing yards per game when he was on the field vs. not on the field and if Tuipulotu can bring similar value, it fits a definite need for the Eagles. And Tarron Jackson, despite being picked at 191 where success is generally not found, has interesting potential as he shined at the Senior Bowl, has all the intangibles you want, and could be a great find from a rising but still overlooked college program. I am really high on all three of these picks and think Howie found some draft inefficiencies that people are overlooking.
Looking forward, the Eagles will most likely lose Barnett, possibly before the start of this season and most definitely before 2022. The Eagles will also start to face the harsh reality of the value of Cox vs. his cost and age. Hargrave should be here for two years given his restructure but will be 30 then. Behind Cox and Hargrave, there was not depth before this draft and getting this talent via free agency or trades is expensive.
Given the above and the amount of cap being used for the DL, the Eagles need to continue to invest there in the 2022 draft, specifically for starting DTs and at least depth at EDGE. With which picks will depend primarily on if they need to use their top picks to acquire or get into a better draft position to get a QB and after they hopefully address CB.
Previous posts in the analyzing the Eagles draft philosophy series:
The Analytics of the Eagles Draft Philosophy Series: CB
I’ve been looking at the Eagles draft history and going to have a couple of posts on their draft philosophy and where they are right or wrong. CB, of course, is first.
This past draft may finally be the turning point for Philly fans as it is the most I have seen people clamor for a 1st round corner, but Howie’s draft history shows his prioritization on CBs is not aligned with the reality of the draft.
Below shows draft stats from 2010–2021, with the first set of columns showing the pure number of picks used by position group. The second set of columns show draft capital used instead of picks to reflect where the Eagles are using higher or lower picks. Then, the league averages for each are shown and where the Eagles rank compared to the league in how they invest by position.
Looking at the above draft investment chart, it appears the Eagles do prioritize CB as they are right around league average in number of picks spent on CBs (14th in the league) and draft capital (16th). But the issue is the Eagles have taken a quantity-over-quality approach to corner and it doesn’t work.
Since 2005, the Eagles are last in the league in prioritizing CBs in the draft. They have selected zero round 1 corners, last in the league and the only team to not have taken a CB in the 1st round. The Eagles have only taken three corners in the 2nd round, tied for last in the league. The other teams the Eagles are tied with (SEA, SFO, BAL, and WFT) all drafted multiple CBs in the 1st round though.
Since 2010, the Eagles have selected the following corners:
1st round — None…
2nd — Sidney Jones, Eric Rowe
3rd — Rasul Douglas, Curtis Marsh
4th — Avonte, Jaylen Watkins, Brandon Boykin, Trevard Lindley, Quintin Demps, Jack Ikegwuonu, Sean Considine, and Zech McPhearson
The list above is 20 picks over a decade with not only no true CB1 coming out of the draft, but barely any average corners. The best of the group is Jalen Mills averaging 4 Approximate Value (AV) per year, which puts him as an average NFL starter (as context, the top CBs generate 6 or more AV per season). Before moving to safety, Mills had PFF grades of 56.1, 57.2, 65.5, and 39.0 with passer ratings allowed of over 100. Next would be the other 7th rounder Jordan Poyer, who the Eagles drafted but released and went on to a 3.8 AV per year career with Cleveland and Buffalo. Next is Avonte as a 3.3 AV per year player, borderline average, who has shown he is at best a nickel corner and more likely either the 4th CB on the field or a safety.
This is clearly impacting the Eagles defense as the Eagles have dropped to near the bottom of the league in overall coverage grades. The grades are worse when you isolate to CBs as a lot of the value in the Eagles coverage defense has been helped by safeties (particularly McLeod) and relatively high LB coverage grades in 2016–2018 (Bradham, Hicks). In the past 5 years, the Eagles have had one season with a CB graded over 80 (Patrick Robinson) and only two seasons with a CB graded over 70 (Darby, LeBlanc) — none of these CBs were drafted players.
Many will say this is another example of Howie not drafting well, but it isn’t an issue of his selections — this is what should be expected when corners are primarily taken on day 3. This is an issue of draft philosophy and which positions Howie values or does not value. Below shows the chance of drafting elite (90th percentile by AV), above average (60–90th percentile), or league average (40–60th percentile) corners by round:
Elite corners are almost exclusively drafted in the 1st round where the Eagles have not selected a corner since 2002 (the last time the Eagles secondary was truly good). In the 2nd round, the chance of an above average CB is around 50% and drops to 20% in the 3rd. The Eagles should have expected one of their four 2nd or 3rd round selections to be better than they turned out, but with the majority of their CB picks in rounds 4–6, they had around a 20% chance of even getting an average corner, which is almost exactly what they saw.
A re-draft “what if?”
To play “What if?”, here is a look at the 2015–2019 drafts with the Eagles round 1 pick and the round 1 CBs that were on the board still:
If the Eagles instead took the likely next CB instead of their own pick, they would have clearly had a true CB1 in 3 of the 4 drafts with 2015 and 2017 being the most likely places they could have (should have) gone with a corner. As comparison, these corners would have graded out at or above where Darius Slay is for the Eagles right now, who generated 7 AV last season.
2015 Draft The Eagles drafted Agholor, a good but inconsistent player who grades out where he should as an average starter with 4.50 AV per year. Byron Jones, who the Eagles made a big play for a couple of years ago, was the only remaining round 1 graded CB in that draft and would have been a great pick.
2016 Draft This is the year the Eagles took Carson and I am including this just for fun. QB is the only position more important to get in the 1st and the Eagles did the right thing, despite how it has ended with Carson. But Jalen Ramsey was there…
2017 Draft This is one of the most interesting years as it shows where the Eagles do prioritize (defensive line) and the players they missed out on. Instead of the Eagles drafting Derek Barnett with pick 14, 3 of the 4 CBs available are all top 10–15 corners in the league and near elite level. You never know with Howie, but Marlon Humphrey would have most likely been the pick as he was the consensus next graded corner on the board. Barnett is a good, but not great, player and Humphrey’s 7.00 AV per season nearly doubles Barnett’s 4.25 AV. There are only 8 CBs that have graded out at 7AV or better since 2005.
2018 Draft Skipping this draft as the Eagles did not have a first this year after trading with the Ravens.
2019 Draft Corners are hard to evaluate early in their careers and many have started off poor and turned it around. But 2019 looks like the one year where round 1 CBs may have missed. They have potential but are either moving to slot (Byron Murphy), have missed significant time due to injuries (Greedy Williams and Deandre Baker), or just not shown CB1 play yet (Rock Ya-Sin). Even given this, they all grade out higher than the Eagles pick of Dillard who has missed time and not lived up to expectations for a round 1 pick.
The 2021 draft and looking forward to 2022
The 2021 draft is an interesting validation that CBs need to be taken high. Maybe the Eagles would have taken Horn or Surtain but we will never know as both were taken top 10, showing that the view that “there isn’t value at CB that high” is wrong. CBs were the most heavily drafted position in 2021 with five taken in the 1st round, three more in the 2nd, and eight in the 3rd, quickly depleting the top talent. The Eagles probably would have targeted a CB at some point but at each pick, the value was not there (Horn and Surtain were gone by their pick in the 1st and Newsome, Stokes, and Campbell were gone by 37). Other teams are prioritizing CBs and taking them quickly year after year.
The Eagles need to change their draft philosophy on CBs as they are at odds with both the league reality of needing three really good corners on the field for most snaps and the historical draft value data that shows corners need to be taken very high. The Eagles hoping for late-round hits — Mills is their best example but is an average corner — or trotting in endless reclamation projects like this year’s Obi Melifonwu or prior years’ Craig James, Cre’Von LeBlanc, Michael Jacquet, Kevon Seymour, Leodis McKelvin, and many others pressed into significant playing time and hoping they hit is not working. This is not criticism of the players — players like LeBlanc played their heart out and outperformed — it is a criticism of the process. Howie de-prioritizing CB and hoping to get starters on the cheap is not supported by the reality of draft history on where CB1s are found.
People will also point to Gannon’s success with the Colts and Vikings corners and the anticipated Eagles defensive scheme with more zone as a reason to continue de-prioritizing corners, but this does not mean you do not need talent. Gannon had multiple first round CBs with Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes, and Rock Ya-Sin. No amount of scheme is going to magically cover for an undermanned CB group when Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb, and Michael Gallup are on the field at the same time.
The Eagles have to use one (or more) of their top picks on CB next year — to continue to ignore the position and look on the sale rack in the later rounds is going to kill the team. Howie does a lot right and also gets a lot of criticism for things like individual selections or ignoring linebacker, but his top draft issue is the decade-long neglect of the cornerback position. So next year, unless they make a trade for a CB1 ahead of the draft, Howie should be looking at Stingley or Banks or Elam. Or ideally two of them.
DeVonta Smith Will Hit the “Over” on Everything
First a disclaimer — this is not betting advice and I never bet on sports (or bet or gamble on anything actually). I have had way too much statistics in my life to go against lines set using large populations of people making bets.
We Eagles fans have lacked a top WR for so long that it seems impossible to dream big, even for such a talented prospect as DeVonta. But he’s going to crush expectations. I’ll make the case here looking at recent history.
The current O/U for DeVonta’s rookie receiving yards vary some, but are in the 750–800 yard range. PointsBet has him at O/U 750.5 yards on the lower end and the highest I have seen is BettingSuperBowl.com at 800 yards. Either of these would put him above any Eagles WR over the past two seasons and back the leaders around our Super Bowl era. The last WRs near or above 750 yards in a season include:
2018 — Alshon 843 yards, Agholor 736 yards
2017 — Alshon 789, Agholor 768
The 3 year stretch from 2017–2019 did see higher receiving stats but they were for TE Ertz who saw the majority of targets and ended with 824, 1163, and 916 receiving yards through those seasons.
What we can learn from recent drafts
I previously wrote about why I am really optimistic on the Eagles draft class and compared DeVonta to other top 10 WRs picked. Below are the WRs picked in the top 10 between 2010–2020 excluding the two misses (John Ross and Kevin White as I am assuming DeVonta is not going to be an out-and-out miss).
Top 10 Drafted WRs 2010–2020
Mike Williams did not play much his rookie year due to some injuries (herniated disc, knee) and Tavon Austin is more of a RB/WR combo, with nearly as many rushing attempts in his career as targets. But the average of these nine top 10 WRs is 764 yards in their rookie year. Excluding Williams and Austin who barely played, the average is 908 yards, easily beating DeVonta’s expectations. And taking a 16 game projection for each averages to over 1,000 yards receiving (I excluded Tavon’s silly 2,229 16 G projection). DeVonta will clearly start and play every game if healthy.
What could go against DeVonta?
Playing time – Given his talent, really the only thing that really would limit his output is playing time due to injuries. He’s never missed a game at Alabama.
Eagles spreading the ball around – DeVonta will clearly be WR1 on the Eagles. And each of the above receivers had other high target receivers — Julio had Roddy White (1296 yards), Amari Cooper had Michael Crabtree (922 yards), Mike Evans had Vincent Jackson (1002 yards), Sammy Watkins had Robert Woods (699 yards), Blackmon had Cecil Shorts (979 yards), and AJ Green had Jerome Simpson (725 yards).
Poor QB play – Yes, this could impact him as Hurts is entering his first season as starter. But the majority of the receivers above didn’t have great QBs – Corey Davis had Mariota, Watkins had Kyle Orton, Mike Evans had Josh McCown, AJ Green had Andy Dalton, and Blackmon had the dual threat of Chad Henne and Blaine Gabbert. I’ll take Hurts here.
Increased focus on the run – Yes, Sirianni has made clear they will be more balanced. But no matter what it is a passing league and if the Eagles are not a great team in 2021, they’ll be playing from behind a lot.
What is going to help DeVonta?
Improved OL play – It would be hard to imagine the OL being more injured than last year. Lane and Brooks should be back. And the depth is going to be better with Driscoll and Herbig each with another year of experience, Dillard back, and the addition of Landon.
Improved offensive scheme – Last year, the scheme didn’t use our players to their strengths. Sirianni has made clear this will be different with more focus on getting the ball in receivers hands early. This is huge for DeVonta – as Ben Fennel tweeted, DeVonta led all of college football in YAC by a huge amount:
DeVonta Smith had the most YAC in CFB over the last 3 seasons… More than 500 yards more than the next WR.
Increased targets to WRs – Ertz was the top target in the passing game and still expected to not be on the Eagles in 2021. Additionally, Hurts targeted WRs slightly more than Wentz did with the same receiving corps (54% vs 52%). DeVonta will not be lacking in targets.
I’m all in on DeVonta this year and think he is going to exceed our high expectations. Not only because he is that good but because history tells us he will.
Over.
Why the Data Supports Optimism on the Eagles 2021 Draft
Much has been written of the Eagles poor drafting over the past decade which made the 2021 draft critical to restocking an old and depleted roster. This draft is widely viewed as one where Howie and the staff finally stuck to BPA, leaving some still glaring roster holes like cornerback. This will not be a draft grade article as a million of them have been written and they will all be wrong. But hopefully this will show why past data points towards a higher quality draft than the Eagles have had in a while.
As background, I have been using past draft data and ProFootballReference’s Approximate Value (AV) player value metric to analyze the draft and all of the analysis below uses 2010–2019 draft and player value data (I intentionally left 2020 draft data out as the player value data in a rookie season is not extremely useful). If interested in more detail on the data set, you can see a deeper description here.
Analyzing the Eagles draft history
The below shows the career value percentile rank using AV (vertical axis) and pick slot (horizontal axis) for every Eagles draft pick between 2010–2019. I group these percentile ranks into the following:
Elite — 90th percentile (top 10%) players Above average — 60th to 90th percentile players League average — 40th to 60th percentile players Poor — Below 40th percentile players
Leading the Eagles unsurprisingly as “elite” drafted players are Fletcher Cox and Zach Ertz with Kelce, Lane Johnson, Wentz, Miles Sanders, and Goedert right behind them. In the “league average” (40th to 60th percentile middle section) are a whole list of players that have had flashes in their careers but overall solid starters, including Jordan Matthews, Avonte Maddox, Seumalo, and Agholor. And at the bottom of the chart are noticeable draft misses (Marcus Smith, Thorson, Jaiquawan Jarrett, the fireman, and Sidney Jones) as well as some players early in their career with great potential but just haven’t shown consistent value yet like Mailata.
Comparing to the top drafting teams, what is obvious for the Eagles are two well-understood things: (1) they have not had the home run picks that others have had and (2) the volume of solid, starting picks is too low with too many misses across the draft. Just for a visual, here is what Seattle’s and Green Bay’s (the two top drafting teams over the past decade) draft value charts look like. Their median pick isn’t really any better than the Eagles history as the trend line shows, but it pops out visually how many more upper percentile picks they have had compared to the Eagles.
Why we should be optimistic on the 2021 draft
Round 1: DeVonta Smith, WR
Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith
First, in all transparency, all draft season I felt like the President of the Cornerback Fan Club as I pounded the Twitter table that the right pick in the first was CB (here is an entire article I wrote with the analysis of why CBs are more valuable round 1 picks than WRs if interested). But Horn and Surtain were off the board by 12 and I could not be more excited for the Smith pick.
Since 2010, there have been twelve top 10 WRs drafted:
Three were misses (Kevin White, John Ross, and Justin Blackmon)
One grades as a league average player (Tavon Austin) but has some dual-threat uniqueness
The other seven average out to generate over 8 AV per season, putting them in “elite” range (includes players from Julio at the top end to Mike Williams as the lowest of the seven)
Why DeVonta is likely one of our best draft picks ever: If DeVonta is not a “miss” and performed at the average level of these seven, he would be in the 90th percentile of players and above all Eagles draft picks in the chart above except Fletcher Cox and Zach Ertz. If he is at the low-end (“only a Mike Williams”), he will still be the best draft pick since Goedert.
What could go wrong? The only concern on DeVonta is his weight — not his skill, measurables, route-running, level of competition, or intangibles. Could he fail? Sure. But the Eagles went BPA and history shows it is highly likely the Eagles just drafted one of their best players ever.
Round 2: Landon Dickerson, Center
Eagles center Landon Dickerson
I absolutely love Philly fans, but what originally got me into looking deeply at draft data this year were a couple of common views that are just not true based on history. The first was “you don’t draft CBs high” (mentioned above) and the second was “we can get a center late in the draft like Kelce and let Stoutland develop them.” Both of these just aren’t true. Yes, we got Kelce late but he is a really rare exception.
I posted on Twitter why I thought center was a priority and one to be drafted high (link here to see the whole thread) but will summarize here. Since 2005, 14 centers have been drafted that graded out as “Above Average” or better (above 60th percentile):
Only 2 were drafted after the 3rd round (Kelce and Corey Linsley).
Of the rest, 6 were drafted in the 1st round, 5 in the 2nd round, and 1 in the 3rd. The best centers like Elgton Jenkins, Alex Mack, Maurkice Pouncey, and Travis Frederick are drafted high.
Why Landon is our next franchise center: Landon was widely viewed as the consensus top center in the draft but fell because of his injury history. Historically, the top centers drafted have averaged 8 AV per season, again grading out in the 90th percentile as “elite” and up there with Fletcher, Ertz, Lane, and Kelce.
The second reason to love this pick is that Howie is right about investing in the lines. Football Outsiders has great data here that shows that DVOA (Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average) declines by 108% when a QB is under pressure, resulting in 4.1 yards less per play. While Kelce was a rock last year, the Eagles OL was a mess overall and investing here will improve the entire offense.
What could go wrong? Easy, obviously his injury history. Between my deep dive on CBs and researching microdiscectomies for Caleb Farley and now Landon’s ACL, I feel like part data nerd, part orthopaedic. The best study I could find on recurrent ACL tears was this one which did show an elevated risk or re-tearing the same ACL, but it is only slightly higher than initial tears (12% re-tearing same ACL vs. 9% in the control group). Me, I will bet on the guy who went out in the national championship for the final ceremonial snaps a week after his ACL tear and famously showed off his cartwheels in Mac Jones’ interview.
Round 3: Milton Williams, DT
Eagles defensive lineman Milton Williams
Historically, by the middle of the third round the chance of getting a league average player or better falls below 50% so picks from here on out are much harder to count on. The best drafting teams, like Seattle and Green Bay above, consistently find quality starters here though. And a lot points to the Eagles having a good shot at a quality starter here.
Why Milton Williams took advantage of a possible draft inefficiency: As the draft goes on, it is more and more important to draft based on inefficiencies in the draft — either relatively higher value positions, players with concerns that dropped them in the draft (small school, opting out and limited tape, injuries, etc.), or as with this pick, an under-drafted position in the draft.
The 2021 draft was not expected to be a great DT draft with not one selected in the first round. By the time the Eagles selected Williams, however, he was only the 4th DT taken (in comparison, in the past 10 drafts, over 7 DTs have been drafted by the time the 73rd pick arrives). This matched pre-draft rankings as Williams was generally slotted between the 3th and 5th best DT prospect.
Historically, the average value of the 3rd through 5th DT selected is the 50th percentile which would put Williams between Bennie Logan and Mychal Kendricks. Add to that that Williams was the 4th highest rated defensive lineman since 1987 on Relative Athletic Scores and it is reasonable to believe he will outperform that projection. He is a player I mocked a lot to the Eagles
What could go wrong? This really could have been a historically weak DT draft class and the perceived value was a mirage. Of all positions, however, DT has the 4th lowest year-to-year variance in total actual draft value measured by average AV per player drafted. This means that despite supposed “strong” and “weak” draft years, DTs show a fairly consistent amount of draft value.
Day 3 Picks:
This would lose all credibility if I forecasted sleeper after sleeper with the Eagles remaining 6 picks on day 3. It’s just not going to happen as the likelihood of getting quality starters here is just too low. The Eagles have been a relatively better team at later round picks, though (this is good, but it isn’t how you build a team when early rounds suffer from under-performance). Below shows all Eagles picks with the actual draft value vs. expected draft value — after the 150th pick, the Eagles start outperforming the league as the trend line increases above 0.
Based on history, you can expect 4 of the 6 day three Eagle picks to be “Poor” players and 2 picks to be “Average” or “Above Average”. This draft will likely be worse than normal given the fewer number of players that declared for the draft and instead returned to college for another year. Here’s my quick take:
Most likely to be an above average pro:
Round 5: Kenny Gainwell, RB Gainwell is widely viewed as the Eagles steal pick and I agree. Two pieces of data:
Gainwell was only the 9th RB taken as RB, similar to DT, was under-drafted in 2021. On average, over 14 RBs are taken by this point in the draft. This pushes value deeper into the draft.
His pre-draft consensus was the 4th top RB prospect. Historically, this would equate to a 55th percentile player, on the border of average and above average and the Eagles best 5th round pick in the last 10 years by a good margin.
Round 6: Marlon Tuipulotu, DT Another potential draft inefficiency as DTs were under-drafted and Marlon was projected as more of a run-stuffer. Bennie Logan is an interesting comparison here as somebody without the stat line but had very underrated value to the Eagles — defenses let up 50 fewer rushing yards when Bennie was on the field vs. not on the field. Marlon was the 14th DT selected and over 40% of DTs selected in that range are still average or better starters in the league — a very good hit rate for a round 6 selection.
Other day 3 picks:
Zech McPherson was the 18th CB taken in a heavily drafted CB class. Some had him as a top 100 pick and see him as a potential sleeper, but the data is stacked up so heavily against any CB taken here. I really want him to succeed. Avonte is a good comparison and probably likely best case here as a league average player. But I will be rooting for much more here and would not be surprised if he is our nickel corner moving forward.
Tarron Jackson is raw with the intangibles you absolutely want and comes from a less-drafted-from-school. Success rate on EDGEs at this point in the draft is very low and one of the worst positions to draft late historically, but Tarron showed extremely well at the Senior Bowl. He has the time to learn behind Graham, Sweat, and Barnett, but is exactly the type of player that could be undervalued in the draft. Like Milton Williams, Tarron is a player I mocked a ton to the Eagles. I’m excited to see his potential and think it is another place where Howie found value.
Both JaCoby Stevens and Patrick Johnson were drafted late and are going to switch positions in the pros. The upside here is the change in position and if they were both passed on by others due to fit.
What this draft really could look like
Again, DeVonta could be too small, Landon could get hurt, this could have been a uniquely bad DT class… but below is what this draft class could look like just based on the talent drafted, the draft inefficiencies that the Eagles hopefully took advantage of, and what history tells us about these types of picks.
Drafts take years to know how they actually turned out, but the Eagles went BPA, invested in the lines that they value, and appeared to have taken advantage of some draft inefficiencies that should yield benefit. Four or five picks should significantly outperform expected value in this draft, with two elite or near-elite players, and some of the best day 3 value picks the Eagles have made. This will go a long way towards rebuilding this roster.
An Eagles 2021 Draft Board and Post-Draft Analysis
Here is my shot at an Eagles 2021 draft board – few points to clarify the spreadsheet layout:
The left-to-right ordering of positions is my view on their positional priorities, grouped into Priority 1 (CB, WR, Edge, Center, and IDL), Priority 2 (LB, S, TE), and Priority 3 (RB, OT, QB, and ST)
Each round has my view on Eagles targets – for slotting, I used a variety of sources primarily Grinding the Mocks and Dane Brugler’s 2021 “The Beast” draft guide on The Athletic.
I marked each player with indicators if they had some confirmed meeting with the Eagles (virtual meeting, Pro Day, or Senior Bowl), if they were a Senior Bowl standout, and their Relative Athletic Score ranking. Reasoning is teams are more likely to target and draft players they met with. And, the Eagles have recently shown a preference towards highly athletic (high RAS) players. Some players they met with but had poor RAS scores (Dazz Newsome for example) and I still included them, but doubted they would be an actual pick.
There are a lot of great players I didn’t list just because I didn’t see them as actual priorities or targets for the Eagles (which is why I refuse to have any QBs earlier than round 6).
Here is what my Eagles draft board looks like – for good or bad, right or wrong – going into the 2021 draft:
Post-draft update
Here is the draft board updated after the draft, with selected players taken as well as counts for each round showing how many of that position was taken this year vs. the average number of players drafted at that position in that round.
A few summary thoughts:
Positional priorities were aligned – The Eagles priorities aligned for the most part, with WR, center, and defensive line being where they spent their high picks this year.
Corner went later than expected – I (and everybody) thought corner would be taken much earlier than the 4th as I had it as their top priority (and I have 5 million posts and tweets pounding the table for a corner). And we will never know, but I think if Horn or Surtain were there when they picked, they would have drafted one of them. The 2nd and 3rd rounds also did not work out with corner being the most heavily drafted position through both the first three rounds and the entire draft. This reinforces my point that corners have to be taken high – for more on why and what the historical data shows on corners, read more in these two posts:
Defensive line and running back may have been draft inefficiencies – Both positions were drafted much lighter than typical years, with 2021 being viewed as not a great defensive tackle year. The Eagles got Milton Williams as only the fourth DT taken where on average, over seven DTs are taken by the 73rd pick. Even Tuipulotu was only the fourteenth DT taken way in the 6th round.
Where I was wrong – I wanted a center and was glad the Eagles took one, but really thought they would have stayed away from Landon’s injury history, especially with health being one of the three pillars of Howie’s draft strategy last year (“can they run, are they healthy, and do they love football”). And I missed totally on Zech McPhearson, Patrick Johnson, and Jacoby Stevens as they weren’t even on the board.
My No-Trade, Needs-Based, Data-Backed Eagles 2021 Draft Strategy
I previously wrote a post on why the Eagles should take a cornerback in the first round over a wide receiver based on (1) the Eagles dire need for CBs and (2) the historical value of each position and ease of finding starters by round. This analysis used ProFootball Reference’s Approximate Value (AV) metric to measure player value. For a description of AV, here is a deeper description of the metric and how I used it.
Now, as I am prepare for my annual draft disappointment, I want to build out what my full draft strategy would be for the Eagles based on their needs, their possible draft board, and what historical draft data tells us about where value is found.
What Does Historical Draft Data Tell Us
First, some data on the realities of the draft which will drive my prioritization (all data below uses draft data from 2005–2020).
You have to get your priority positions in the first 3 rounds
Almost 60% of the elite players are drafted in the 1st round, another 20% in the 2nd, 12% in round 3, and almost none rounds 4–7
Sometime in the 3rd round, the draft crosses over where 50% of picks are poor players or busts
Rounds 5–7 have under a 25% chance of drafting a league average
This year, we should expect the draft to be even more top-heavy with less expected success in the later rounds given how many fewer players declared for the draft due to the NCAA allowing an extra year of eligibility due to Covid.
QBs, CBs, pass rushers (and left tackles) need to be taken VERY early
Positions like quarterback and left tackle are widely accepted as positions you have to find at the top of the draft. But it is still widely declared, especially in Philly (in the face of all data) that positions like CB can be easily found later. Below shows how much each position degrades in AV value by round — Edge, QB, IDL, and CB are the top 4 fastest degrading positions meaning you better get them early.
In the above, right and left tackles are combined into a single tackle category, which does not reflect the importance of left tackles specifically. My friend and a great follow @PHLEagleNews just sent me an article from OverTheCap.com that finds the average draft position for the top 15 paid players at each position (https://overthecap.com/where-the-top-15-paid-players-at-each-position-were-drafted). It shows the top 5 highest drafted positions are consistent with CB, LT, QB, IDL, and Edge.
What makes these positions even more critical is that they are also some of the most heavily drafted positions. Below shows the percentage of picks in each round by position, with CB as the most highly drafted round 1 position, averaging over 5 CBs taken. Edge and Tackle are the next two most frequently drafted round 1 positions, followed by LB, WR, IDL, and QB.
For priority positions, you want to be one of the first 5 to 10 players of that position drafted
Below shows the player class by how many of that position has been drafted already. The first grouping are the 1st through 5th players picked at their position, the second grouping are the 6th through 10th players at their position, etc. Overall, in the top 5 of a position you have a 75% chance of an average or better player, but between 6–10 of a position drafted, the success rate falls below 50%. Between 11–15, you have a one-third chance of drafting at least an average player.
This does differ by position some but generally holds true — below shows the value curves for our priority positions (CB, WR, EDGE, and IOL):
Now, the Draft…
Below I will lay out my strategy for each pick based on the historical data, the Eagles draft needs, and the top players on my board. For some reality, I will use The Draft Network’s Mock Draft Machine to actually make my picks.
Eagles Draft Needs
The Eagles really don’t have a position that isn’t some sort of need, but I rank the positional needs as follows:
My top targets: CB Jaycee Horn, CB Patrick Surtain, WR Devonta Smith, WR Jaylen Waddle, OT Rashawn Slater
Top available on simulator: The top WRs were gone in this simulation, leaving the best available players on The Draft Network’s simulator as QB Mac Jones, Horn, LB Parsons, and OT Darrisaw.
Given the above historical data, the Eagles have to prioritize a CB very early and it is what I doing here. Many will want a WR here, which is also a need, but a further dive into historical draft data shows that good WRs can be found later in the draft than good CBs. By pick 40 elite CBs are almost nonexistent and by pick 60 teams have an over 50% chance of a CB being worse than league average (Avonte Maddox is slightly above league average for context).
The pick: Easy one, you take Horn here.
Alternate pick: I worry that Horn will not actually be available in the actual draft and if not, it should mean that one of the WRs (Smith, Waddle) or Slater would be available. If this was the case, I would take Smith, then Waddle, then Slater. And would be happy with any of them, but this forces the Eagles hand at 37 with CB.
Round 2, Pick 37: EDGE Carlos Basham
My top targets (in rough priority order): WR Terrace Marshall, WR Kadarius Toney, CB Eric Stokes, CB Asante Samuel, EDGE Carlos Basham, LB Nick Bolton, C Creed Humphrey, C Landon Dickerson
Top available on simulator: Available for me are RBs Travis Etienne and Javonte Williams, C Landon Dickerson, OT Samuel Cosmi, WRs Amari Rodgers and Dyami Brown, C Creed Humphrey, EDGEs Jayson Oweh, Payton Turner, and Basham, and LBs Browning and Bolton.
The pick: EDGE Carlos Basham. He is the 5th EDGE taken here, getting another priority position in the top 5 of that position taken and upping the odds of getting an above average starter. I would have preferred to have taken Marshall if he fell and in an actual draft, would have tried to trade up to get him. Looking back at the 1st pick, 5 CBs are now off the board (Surtain, Horn, Farley, Newsome, and Stokes) leaving Asante, Aaron Robinson, and Kelvin Joseph as the next best available, showing how CBs get depleted quickly.
Alternate pick: The board fell near the worst case scenario for most Philly fans as the target WRs were taken before both 12 and 37. I would look at the three options below (CB, LB, C) but would take Asante Samuel Jr. here.
Double-up on CB to lock down that position for several years to come and take Asante. Many may think this excessive but teams will play 3 CBs 70–80% of snaps today. But what about Avonte? I personally view him (who allowed a 108 passer rating last year) as at best a nickel and probably a rotational piece.
Take LB Bolton who may not be the biggest need for the Eagles, but is decent value here.
Take our next center with Landon available here. Given his injury history and IOL holding value relatively better through the first 3 rounds, I would pass here as it feels like a bit of a reach, as much as I love his game.
Round 3, Pick 70: C Quinn Meinerz
My top targets: C Quinn Meinerz, C Josh Myers, IDL Milton Williams, IDL Alim McNeill, IDL Marlon Tuipulotu, IDL Togiai, IDL Tufele, WR Amon-Ra St Brown, WR Tylan Wallace, CB Tyson Campbell, LB Jabril Cox, LB Baron Browning
Top available on simulator: Available for me are several safeties including Javon Holland (?), Jamar Johnson, and Richie Grant (?), both Meinerz and Josh Myers at C, several TEs including Freiermuth (?), Brevin Jordan, and Tommy Tremble, IDL Tommy Togiai, WRs Tylan Wallace and Amon-Ra St Brown, LB Chazz Surratt, CB Tyson Campbell, and Edges Janarius Robinson and Quincy Roche.
The pick: Quinn Meinerz. Given only two centers have been drafted so far (Creed and Landon) and 7–8 teams could use a center, I will take the value here and grab Meinerz. You often here in Philly “you can get centers late in the draft like Kelce” or “Stoutland is so good, you can draft a center in the late rounds”. Our familiarity and love for Kelce is great but is fortune, not a plan.
Below shows all centers drafted since 2005 that have averaged 7 AV or more per season, giving them an “Above Average” starter classification. Only 3 of the 15 were drafted after the 3rd round (Kelce, Corey Linsley, and Shaq Mason who actually plays guard now). Six of the 15 were drafted in the 1st and another five were drafted in the 2nd.
Alternate pick: If Meinerz was not available, I would have looked at Myers, Tuipulotu, Richie Grant, Amon-Ra St Brown, or Tylan Wallace but taken Myers. Richie Grant would have been hard to pass up but I just prioritized center over safety. Milton Williams is a lineman I would have loved here but he went 68th.
Round 3, Pick 84: WR Amon-Ra St Brown
My top targets (rough priority order): Largely the same list as pick 70 with but adding EDGE Quincy Roche, EDGE Patrick Jones, G Deonte Brown, and OT D’Ante Smith.
Top available on simulator: WRs Amon-Ra St Brown and Tylan Wallace, TE Brevin Jordan, LB Jabril Cox, IDLs Tufele and Alim McNeill, RB Kenneth Gainwell, EDGE Roche, QB Kellen Mond, S Divine Deablo, CB Paulson Adebo.
The pick: I don’t feel great about this pick but the Eagles have to walk away with a WR. Amon-Ra would be the 13th WR taken in this draft, projects to fit well in quick-timing so he is a good fit for the Eagles likely offense, but is not a sure thing by any means. If he fits history and averages around 6 AV per season, he would have comparables of Tyler Lockett, Terrance Williams, Chris Godwin, and Eric Decker, all drafted in the same location with average expected AV for that draft position. Lockett is a very similar athletic profile to Amon-Ra and if he hit that comparison, would be the Eagles WR1 or WR2.
Alternate pick: It’s hard not to go WR (if not St Brown, then Tylan Wallace) here since the first two rounds worked against us with WRs. The non-WR I would take here would be Alim McNeill as only 4 IDLs have been selected so far in this mock. Even in a perceived poor year for IDL, you would be getting your 5th ranked player here vs. the average year when close to 10 IDLs would have been picked by this point in the draft. Even considering this is a down year, a top 5 IDL still is a likely solid starter at near 70% chance of being league average.
Rounds 4–7
At this point, I hope I have a future CB1, an immediate rotational EDGE and future starter, my future C, and I took another swing at a WR in a deep class. From this point on, the data is stacked against us on consistently hitting on true starters and the focus will be on the following:
Positions that historically have had better hit rates in later rounds (OT, IDL, CB)
Players with that may have opted out or have limited 2020 tape that have the traits needed
Round 4, Pick 123: IDL Alim McNeill Only 3 years of experience as a DT, high athletic profile, but underdeveloped and will need time on technique.
Round 5, Pick 150: CB, Ambry Thomas Only started 1 year in 2019 then opted out, so limited tape, but allowed only a 56% passer rating at Michigan in 2019.
Round 6, Pick 189: TE Tre McKitty Underutilized with only 10 targets in 7 games at UGA before opting out led to questions on his pass-catching abilities.
Round 6, Pick 224: WR Cornell Powell Limited college resume with only the 2020 season where he was a significant part of the offense and already 23 years old, but YAC threat and
Round 6, Pick 225: OT Drew Himmelman Similarities to Mailata, Himmelman is massive at 6’9″ and relatively inexperienced. He will need time on the practice squad but is worth an investment late.
Round 7, Pick 234: EDGE Tarron Jackson Productive edge defender at Coastal Carolina
Round 7, Pick 240: P Pressley Harvin This one is a write-in as The Draft Network’s simulator does not have special teams players. My concern is Harvin may need to be taken earlier as he is a very draftable punter.
One piece of data on the last pick. I have seen a lot more mocks recently picking a punter for the Eagles as they have a need. But wanted to share some data as there is still a view that drafting a punter or kicker is a wasted pick vs. other positions. I posted about this earlier here but below shows the actual player value vs. the expected value from that draft position by position. In round 7, only two positions have positive median value vs. expected value at that position — kicker and punter. The reasoning makes sense — at the end of the draft, you are already into the 15–20th player at a position but getting the top 1 or 2 special teams players.
Mock Summary
R1–12: CB Jaycee Horn R2–37: EDGE Carlos Basham R3–70: C Quinn Meinerz R3–84: WR Amon-Ra St Brown R4–123: IDL Alim McNeill R5–150: CB Ambry Thomas R6–189: TE Tre McKitty R6–224: WR Cornell Powell R6–225: OT Drew Himmelman R7–234: EDGE Tarron Jackson R7–240: P Pressley Harvin
I ran a second mock draft on The Draft Network’s simulator since the above broke so wrong for Eagles fans hopes for a WR, which I will just summarize here to show another option using the same data to go after needs:
R1–12: WR Jaylen Waddle R2–37: CB Asante Samuel R3–70: IDL Marlon Tuipulotu R3–84: EDGE Quincy Roche R4–123: C Kendrick Green R5–150: CB Ambry Thomas R6–189: RB Chris Evans R6–224: CB Shemar Jean-Charles R6–225: OT Drew Himmelman R7–234: EDGE Tarron Jackson R7–240: P Pressley Harvin
