I was like a lot of other people this past weekend in that I sat glued to the television for the better part of three days. And I got tons of phone calls, texts and emails asking what I thought about this pick or that pick or the draft as a whole.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say another million times if I have to: I have no clue.
No one has any clue about who had a good draft or who screwed it up. The closest way I could ever come to judge a draft is if you could identify a team’s holes and then ask if they at least attempted to address them. The Eagles needed another defensive end, and they most certainly addressed that need. Did they fix it? Who knows? We have no idea whether the Eagles solved their defensive end issue.
So to illustrate my point, I started Googling past draft recaps and comparing them to what we know now. What I learned immediately was that not a lot of websites keep those posted and for good reason. They are flat out wrong about 80% of the time.
I did find this one from Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports from 2007. He gave each team a draft grade and explained why. I’m not knocking him for it. Tons of people do it and many people enjoy reading them. I check them out after the draft, I just don’t put any stock in them. If anyone in the media was fully qualified to judge a draft immediately after the selections, they’d be in someone’s front office. Even then, they wouldn’t know for sure.
Here is what Charles had to say about the Eagles’ draft back in 2007:
Philadelphia Eagles: Quarterback was a need, but No. 36 overall? And Kevin Kolb? It seemed like a bit of a stretch. Most teams seemed to like him in the third round, and taking him this high is only going to create more questions about Donovan McNabb. When the Eagles finally did address the defensive end need, they tabbed a guy without great speed in Victor Abiamiri. Third-rounder Stewart Bradley is slow and seems more suited to a 3-4 defense in the NFL. Running back Tony Hunt is a big back that offers good value in the third. It’s hard to believe the Eagles didn’t take a single wide receiver in this draft or take a stab at Seattle’s Darrell Jackson or Oakland’s Randy Moss ‚Äì both of which moved for only fourth-rounders.
Grade: D
-Maybe Kolb was a reach, but it would seem like they got the right guy. While we still don’t for sure exactly how good Kolb can be (can he hold up against the pressure and the pounding? Will he be a turnover machine?), I think we’ll agree that at this point, we think Kolb can play.
-Ok, he’s kind of right on Abiamiri. He’s given the team next to nothing, mostly because of injuries.
-Pretty wrong on Stewart Bradley. Before he got hurt, he was becoming a star in the middle of a 4-3 defense.
-Tony Hunt was phenomenal value in the third round. Played in 14 games (hardly) in two seasons and scored 2 TD’s. Not that’s value. Joe Banner and Andy Reid are still stunned by all that value. He had so much of it that he got cut before his third season and hasn’t been seen since. Value.
-I’ll agree that Randy Moss was worth a fourth rounder. I think we’re all in agreement there. But what if the Eagles did as Robinson suggests and handed over a fourth for Darrell Jackson? Since that trade he scored four TD’s for two different teams and was out of football last year. Value?
So you see my point. These draftniks like Mel Kiper and Todd McShay are educated people who have done their research. But at the end of the day, even that means next to nothing.
IF Earl Thomas is a bust and Graham becomes a beast most fans will say they saw it coming. That they knew Nate Allen was the better of the 2 safety’s. I love the fans thinking and I love how these (experts) give grades t the end of each day then as a draft as a hole. High entertainment value for sure
Every sack from Sean Lee I blame Andy Reid
When it’s all said and done, the draft is a crap shoot. Nobody knows, but some have knowledge about a player and are high on emotion, wanting draftees to work out for their team.
Overall, I like this draft because they focused on ‘D’, heavy. Sure, I would have preferred all the picks to be first team All-Americans, but you have to be realistic, and not be so concerned about other teams picks. Who thought a smallish guy like D Jax would be our #1 last year at this time?
Draft Recaps are not worthless. They allow people who either does not watch college football or knows very little about the players and gives people an understanding of what the players can bring to the NFL based on their college performance. Nobody can tell if someone will be a bust but the recaps lets us know who they were in college so we can determine if they will succeed or not at a pro level.
Eagles had a bad draft.. PERIOD. Deep down everyone knows it thats why you get comments like.. I dont know if they will be good or not. Or I THINK (not know) they had a desent draft. Look last year when we got Peters Maclin and Mccoy and Ingram. Did you see headlines like these? no it was nothing but we had the best draft and we are going to the superbowl with our new additions. So people please. Eagles failed Misserably.
If you bet money based on decisions made with such little information, I will book your action all day long. We have no idea what this draft willl bring, other than some young players, mostly on defense, to Lehigh.
@enzone “who thought a small guy like d jax would be our #1?” ummm… try everybody with a brain. he was slated high value and we got lucky the redskins passed him by.
vricchini: Since you believe draft recaps are NOT worthless and advise others to get an “understanding,” perhaps you better read them first before you make a purely emotional, “Eagles failed miserably” comment, especially since no service has given them less than a B so far.
Hence the , “Throw enough shit at the wall” philosophy..Roseman went in knowing I got to get a pass rusher..Get four..one of em gotta work..
runtheball09 says:- Oh everybody knew? five foot six inches, 160 lbs??????????????
Get real.
I think the Eagles drafted more smaller,high-motor DE’s/OLB’s than Paulman’s Mock Drafts
Not to change the subject.. is anyone getting tired of hearing or reading ” He’ll be a good special teams player…Doesn’t it seem that the Eagles Roster has like 25 Special teams players already…..
Here’s Paulman’s quick look at Roster for the Defense in 2010 Season
DE’s (6) – Cole,Tapp,Graham,Parker,Teo,Sapp (Abriami gets released)
DT’s (4) – Bunkley,Patterson,Dixon, Laws ( J Owens to Practice Squad, & Laws final season)
ILB (2) – S Bradley, J Chaney (Mays and Gaither get released)
OLB (4) – Sims,Fokou,Jordan,A Hall ( K Clayton to the Pratice Squad)
CB (5) – Samuel,Hobbs,Hanson,Patterson,Lindley ( Pope to the practice squad)
S (4) – Mickell,Allen,M Jackson,M Harris (Demps released,draft pick Coleman to practice sqd)
Thats 25 Roster posts for Defense which is about it…
(This CB position scares me though.. not very big or physical or good tacklers across the board..)
The only thing we know for sure is that the Eagles got Quantity. 13 picks in 7 rounds is a lot. If you pick randomly from the top 250 players, some of the 13 are bound to be good picks. So, if you are not right in a high percentage of your picks, you can at least stockpile a bunch of them and sort them out at training camp. This looks like the new Roseman approach. Who knows, it may work. We’ll know in 2014.
Iggles
I know what the grades are and me saying that the draft recaps are not worthless meaning that its very informative for those that do not know the players skills in college. Thats what I was saying above. As far as grading I dont care who gave them a good grade all I care about is my grade! lol which is a D+ We need to change the culture of this team if we want to win a superbowl and though we have changed players its still the same undersized players and still not running the ball enough philosophy that Andy Reid likes. Our offensive line remains weak our running game is questionable we have only 2 QB’s (the QB they drafted will be cut) a small weak secondary which is even worse than last year after losing sheldon which by the way we have not replaced. So how can they get a B or higher??? SMH.. I dont get it.
Richcow..
If you went food shopping and you bought 10 boxes of cerel and 5 gallons of milk and 20 cans of tuna fish and you went food shopping again the next day.. Would you buy more Cerel, milk and tuna??? NO YOU WOULDNT. This is what the eagles did. Got more players that they dont need. Eagles FAIL.
vricc – I thought that was a really interesting post. A good post in fact. Totally gave a convincing perspective. And then you pulled some psychic bullshit and blew it at the end! If you know Kafka gets cut, then why don’t you tell us if Scott, Harbor and Owens make the team.
Ha. Barely the tip of the iceberg. V – who da (Jon Kr)uck GOES FOOD SHOPPING TWO DAYS IN A ROW? You draft once a year – because you lose (“eat”) some and you need more. And once again, I’m impressed at your ability to predict the future – and for ALL THE PICKS. Even if your right, I’m curious how Cooper is like what we’re used to at WR. Chenny doesn’t remind me of anyone we’ve had. Nor Scott. Nor harbor. Nor Lindley. Where are the similarities beyond height and weight? Oh yeah, and Sapp’s style of play is like WHO in our past?
Good work, Micah. You admit that you don’t know as much as you think you might. You do not take yourself too serioiusly. You are A-OK in my book. Tell that Joey Szulewski kid that he might be a first class F-A-G.
To vricchini: Keep typing. You come off as a complete idiot. Grade the draft in 3 years, please.
Paul Mancini…take a break or try the decaf.
@ Schiller your right I dont know for sure whos going to get cut but do you think they will keep 7 DE’s? 9 LB’s? 7 WR’s? 6 combined RB’s and FB’s? no way thats why I say that they will be cut cause they would have to beat out the Vet’s to make a roster spot which is kind of unlikely.
About the food shopping thing cmon you know what I meant.. Why keep getting more of what you dont need? I understand you can never have too many good DE’s or LB’s but when you have other needs to be addressed it can be a waste.
Rather be an idiot than a 40 year old retarded virgin who does’nt have any friends and trys flirting with Micah. Micah be careful of this guy.
I think the eagles did a good job of bringing in a bunch of young guys that are going to be competing for jobs. The first 2 rounds were awesome gaining us two starters or at minimum big contributors. Round 3 uh we will see I say reach but maybe he plays well. Round 4-7 were GREAT. If you pull in as many guys as they did for a team that NEEDED as many guys as they pulled in you did well.
I still think we needed a CENTER but maybe McGlynn or Shippley is good to go I have to trust the coaches on this one.
This draft netted guys that fit this teams philosophy so it was a good draft!!!
Having said that see my next post!
The next 2-3 years will be telling for this team.
The Philosophy of our coaching staff is now more than ever on the line.
If they can get these young fast guys to defeat the HUGE maulers that Dallas, NY, and Washington are bringing on both sides at many positions then This Regime will have been right.
I have to admit though that I as a FAN would prefer to have the BIGGEST MEANEST NASTIEST Monsters on both sides of the ball. I want Huge DE and DT 6,6″+ at 280-325+LB crushing on opponents O Lines. Then I want 245-260LB Line Backers that can run. I want 6’2″ Corners and safeties that make people cry when they hit them. I want 6’4″ receivers that beat small corners up and throw them off to gain yards. I want Mauling Linemen and TE and a big crushing RB.
Of course that is a totally different Philosophy and the league rules really are more in favor of smaller faster guys but still I want the all time biggest team ever.
Yet I still Love my Eagles. Lets Go Birds!!!!!!
Paulman is referring to himself in 3rd person….
frankly I get a headache from reading too many draft analysis’….there are guys out there that will perform and guys that will fail, but spending too much time before they ever put on the pads is really a waste of effort, and you know that during the first mini-camp we will be getting all of these glowing quotes from AR about how great all of these guys look (in shorts no less), that is the only prediction that is certain
Maybe Micah can write an article on “Global Warming”” instead, so we can debate the causes,merits,remedies,etc,etc,etc…you know us Philadelphians, everyone has an opinion
and eyeryone wants to let everyone else know about it …. ha ha …
@enzone you are a complete moron. steve smith is 5’8″ 185lbs and kevin curtis 6’0′ 186lbs. i’m sorry you don’t have any foresight… good luck with your pea size brain life
With Jaqua Parker being 31 along with the Eagles age problems it’s kind of obvious who’s going to get the axe as far as the D-Line…unless the Eagles decide that now is the time to actually evaluate players solely based on their “Real Game” contributions to avoid further ridicule. (pretty poor timing and stupid if that turned out be the case)
Anyway, only in the case of teams that are in the upper echelon of the league and have few gaps to fill can you say that post draft analysis is a waste of time; they are going to take higher risk picks in an effort to improve a spot because they can handle the risk. With other teams post draft analysis is more about whether they addressed larger team issues that will make them competitive, particularly line players, and whether the the team took players that were less risky to begin with based on that player’s College system/position versus the pro system and personnel. For a team like the Eagles, that’s closer to the bottom than the top at this point, they should have elected to go for the less risky players even if those players didn’t pan out this year because the players with less risk this year, filled a whole and were a better fit for the Eagles current defense and personnel. Unfortunately, the Eagles still believe they are in the upper echelon and so decided to take on major risks. It’s not any different than in basketball when a team needs a Power Forward has a really good one avialble for them to draft, but they instead take a guard “Tweener”, because they’ve decided they don’t need a legit Power Forward even though the entire team is undersized across the entire line up and especially at center. It’s completely fine to grade that draft an “F” in my book.
-“…I think we‚Äôll agree that at this point, we think Kolb can play.” –
Speak for yourself Micah.
-“…Ok, he‚Äôs kind of right on Abiamiri.”
-I can agree there
-“…Pretty wrong on Stewart Bradley. Before he got hurt, he was becoming a star in the middle…”
-This is more opinion than fact. Bradley was a serviceable LB in a year when there were no major LB injuries, defensive tackles were playing better, Weapon X was playing SS and Quentin Mikell was playing like a man possessed. Bradley made a lot of tackles, but he also got burnt by TEs pretty regularly.
“…He [Tony Hunt] had so much of it that he got cut before his third season and hasn‚Äôt been seen since. Value.”
-Given how scarce his playing time was he really shouldn’t have even had 2 TDs. Don’t know if he’ll make the Giants squad, but that system is better suited to his style of play and clearly the Giants have decided that the Eagles FO has mediocre talent evaluating skills.
“…But what if the Eagles did as Robinson suggests and handed over a fourth for Darrell Jackson?”
-It probably would have improved a receiving group that included Reggie Brown, LJ Smith and then newly acquired Kevin Curtis. Neither Denver or the 49ers had the elite veteran QB, Offensive line that the Eagles had at the time so Jackson was doomed from the get-go in both of those situations.