Roseman has to get it right in NFL Draft
Pressure is on Eagles GM to get a receiver
It’s OK to question the Eagles for prioritizing the secondary and defense over wide receivers and the offense in their offseason acquisitions.
Their recent history of mistakes in the draft and free agency suggests it was anything but the slam-dunk way to go.
Then again, there are opportunities the Eagles left on the table in this early segment of the new NFL year because they focused so heavily on signing free agent Javon Hargrave, the defensive tackle who enjoys doing the dirty work, and on their trade and contract extension for rubout cornerback Darius Slay.
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman conceded, in so many words, if there was any way to predict the relative bargains following the first wave of free agency then maybe the club could have cashed in.
“We don’t have the benefit of (knowing) that before making our decisions on where prices are and where they’re going,” Roseman said on a conference call Thursday. “We can only deal with them at the moment
when you’re making these calls.”
The Eagles are making up some of their plan on the fly. They’re not looking at the same Super Bowl championship timeline as say the New Orleans Saints with Drew Brees, the 41-year-old quarterback or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with 42-yearold QB Tom Brady.
The Eagles wrestle with their own philosophy from time to time. Roseman called it their biggest challenge.
“If you were to ask me three years ago and said ‘hey, here’s the tradeoff – you can win a Super Bowl but you’re not going to be able to compete for the next two or three years,’ now, quite honestly I probably would have signed up for that,” Roseman said. “And I think that where we are now is that we would really try to do anything we possibly could to win a Super Bowl in the next couple years. But we also realize that because of the nature of this game and because of how often you’re dealing with injuries or things that come cross your plate during the season that you don’t anticipate you really can’t put all your chips in the center of the table when you have a 27-year-old quarterback.
“So, we’re trying to balance being in a position where every year we give our team an opportunity to compete. Certainly, get in the tournament. And then try to be as hot as we possibly can. But we saw it last year. One play can change everything.”
Carson Wentz and the Eagles entered the wild card round of the playoffs with a four-game win streak when he was concussed early in a loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Wentz is fine now. So, too, are the Eagles.
Roseman indicated the Eagles felt their best chance to improve with the resources they had in free agency and in the draft was to go defense in the former and wide receiver in the latter.
So, here we are, a little less than a month until the NFL draft. Everyone on the planet knows the Eagles need wide receivers. There’s no question it’s the deepest position in the draft.
Still, let’s indulge ourselves a bit with what-ifs. Spare me the hindsight is 20-20 line. That’s just not an excuse when your job is to correctly assess the talent and the market.
Would you rather have shutdown cornerback Slay, who cost the Eagles third and fifth-round draft picks and a big contract extension or DeAndre Hopkins, arguably the best wide receiver in the game? Hopkins was acquired by the Arizona Cardinals for running back David Johnson, a second-round pick and an exchange of fourthround picks. Hopkins is going to need an extension at some point.
Roseman argued that in trade situations the valuations of the Eagles’ draft picks aren’t the same as other teams. The Cardinals’ second-round choice is almost first-round quality because of their record.
“I’m just saying the reality of the situation is there are a lot of trades that we look at where I’ll call the GM and say, ‘you know, we talked about this. Why would you do it for that?’” Roseman said. “And they’ll say, ‘well, I really like this player,’ or ‘I like where this pick is.’ So, I think there’s a lot that goes into it and we’re not always in control of the results on that.”
The Eagles didn’t want to give up draft picks for Slay but convinced themselves that was the way to go if they wanted to come out of their first few weeks of business with Slay, Hargrave, safety Rodney McLeod, cornerback Will Parks and nickel back Nickell Robey-Coleman.
“When we looked at that and the way to improve our team, and where that goes from a resource perspective, that’s how we kind of made the decision,” Roseman said. “We didn’t look at it just in a vacuum about kind of one-for-one. We kind of looked at it, here are four assets or four resources that we’re letting go. What can we do with those resources and what do we think makes more sense to make the team better, not only this year but going forward?”
Roseman didn’t name names but it was clear he and his team didn’t think there would be such bargains at wide receiver in the second wave of free agency.
Robby Anderson, the speed receiver the Eagles tried to acquire last year, agreed to a two-year, $20 million deal with the Carolina Panthers.
Emmanuel Sanders, another speedy receiver, agreed to a two-year, $16 million contract with the New Orleans Saints.
Even oft-injured Breshad Perriman looked like a bargain. He agreed to a one-year deal worth $8 million with the New York
Jets.
The Eagles will get a good receiver in the first round of the draft. But it could be a little tougher to get the best guy on their board because the world knows.
It’s a tough job, projecting a team’s needs. But Howie Roseman is getting paid a lot of money to do it.