A New Era of Eagles football?
As stated on the previous page, the Eagles drafted 16 players that scored poorly athletically from 2010-2017. That’s an average of two per draft.
In the 2018-2020 drafts, the Eagles only selected one player with that designation: Matt Pryor. Out of the 20 draft picks in that time span, only one is no longer on the team (Clayton Thorson, sorry Liam). Thorson did not register a score due to not performing in any of the athletic events. He probably would’ve been the Eagles’ second poorest athlete.
Of the 19 remaining players, 11 scored elite athletic scores and green (good, great, or elite) explosive scores. Three players who scored okay athletically also scored green explosive grades (Reagor, Bradley, Watkins). One scored okay in both aspects (JJAW), and one scored okay athletically and red in explosive grades (Miller). Mailata and Wanogho did not register scores. Pryor rounds out the group with his poor scores.
Here’s how it looks:
| Dallas Goedert | 9.51 | G | |||
| Avonte Maddox | 8.86 | Go | |||
| Josh Sweat | 9.71 | E | |||
| Matt Pryor | 2.8 | P | |||
| Jordan Mailata | N/A | N/A | |||
| Andre Dillard | 9.8 | G | |||
| Miles Sanders | 9.49 | G | |||
| JJ Arcega-Whiteside | 6.16 | O | |||
| Shareef Miller | 6.18 | P | |||
| Clayton Thorson | N/A | N/A | |||
| Jalen Reagor | 6.05 | E | |||
| Jalen Hurts | 9.53 | E | |||
| Davion Taylor | 8.54 | G | |||
| K’Von Wallace | 9.42 | E | |||
| Jack Driscoll | 8.9 | G | |||
| John Hightower | 8.02 | G | |||
| Shaun Bradley | 7.74 | Go | |||
| Quez Watkins | 7.41 | G | |||
| Prince Tega Wanogho | N/A | N/A | |||
| Casey Toohill | 9.51 | G |
The “elite” athletes from 2018 and 2019 provided immediate results. The three from the 2020 draft (Hurts, Wallace, and Toohill) have been turning heads in training camp.
With 14 of the 23 “elite” athletes drafted from 2010-2017 still in the league in some capacity, could Howie have looked at that to forecast future success?
2020 Vision
See what I did there?
Howie may not have done all of this monotonous work that I just did to write you a long article, but he could have looked to the contracts of his “elite” athletes and decided it’s time to inject some young athletes into this team.
With the Eagles being about a billion dollars over the salary cap in 2021, the Eagles will need productive players, a lot of them, on rookie contracts.
Fletcher Cox, Carson Wentz, and Lane Johnson account for $73.6 million of the cap in 2021. Zach Ertz seems to be on the verge of a contract extension, or not depending on who you ask, so his $12 million hit may be a little less.
Howie Roseman has some tough decisions coming with some high priced players, namely DeSean Jackson and Alshon Jeffery.
But if his newfound love for elite athletes pays off, then the decisions will be easy.
Maybe the Eagles should hire Kent Lee Platte to the scouting department.
Photo by Zach Bolinger/Icon Sportswire
