Eagles' decision to acquire booker, rather than draft Jones, not working out

ON DRAFT DAY last April, the Eagles made two fairly significant decisions with respect to their running back situation.
The first was acquiring Lorenzo Booker from the Miami Dolphins for a fourth-round pick. The second was trading away their first-round pick in the draft, the 19th overall, to the Carolina Panthers for the Panthers' 2009 first-round pick, plus two lower-round '08 selections.

The connection between the trade and the Eagles' running back situation? Well, one of the players they could have taken with that selection was Arkansas running back Felix Jones, who went three picks later to the Cowboys.

So far, neither of those two decisions are working out very well for the Eagles. For starters, the '09 pick they got from Carolina is getting devalued faster than the U.S. dollar. The Panthers, a 7-9 team a year ago, have won four of their first five games and are developing the look of a playoff team, which means that pick probably is going to be lower than the one the Eagles traded away.

As for passing on Jones, well, through five games, the rookie already has rushed for 244 yards and three touchdowns on just 27 carries for the 4-1 Cowboys, which averages out to a not-of-this-world 9.0 yards per carry.By Paul Domowitch
Philadelphia Daily News

i dont know i kinda like booker , is it that hes not very good or he just hasnt got many snaps, i mean he hasnt been here that long i am not giving up on him yet what do all of you think ?

about 1 year ago EAGLE_MAN71 8 comments 0 recs |

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let’s evaluate shall we. The eagles keep there first rounder the odds they take jones is significantly low, in fact of the cowboys picks i would say we take Jenkins before jones. I don’t think they went fishing for a running back. I think one that they thought was pretty good just happened to fall in their lap. Without trading that pick to carolina odds are we DO NOT pick Jackson. Of our 2 second round picks I can see reid getting laws before Jackson. I think things really have already worked out in this trade. Jackson is probably gonna be the best player on the team in 2 yrs and laws isn’t a bad pick up either. one or more of those first rounders will likely be trade bait next year. You really can’t say this is a failure until booker has had a true shot in the system or until you see what we do with the pick next year

by 0sirys on Oct 9, 2008 7:43 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I’m good with that analysis

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by foos05 on Oct 9, 2008 7:47 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, they took Laws before they took Jackson… so obviously he was higher on their draft board. It’s safe to assume that if we didn’t have another 2nd round pick they would have taken Laws if both he and Jackson were there.

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by JasonB on Oct 9, 2008 10:46 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

not all true

since our 2 2nd round picks had only one pick between them we could of looked at the team between the 2 picks and saw that it was Washington and thought they had a higher chance of taking laws then Jackson. here are the reasons why:

They already picked a WR in that draft
they arent looking for a PR
We would of assumed that they have needs in other places then wr now since they took one and have Moss and Randell el

so it is very possible that they had Jackson higher up on the draft board, however with only one pick between our 2 2nd round picks they felt it was safer to get aws first so Washington dont get him

by NickPampani on Oct 9, 2008 11:08 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

you’re neglecting to take into account that the Eagles had to realize that it wouldn’t necessarily be washington picking between their picks… someone could have easily traded that pick with Washington… odds are they took this into account and came to the decision that Laws would be their first pick and then they would take Jackson if he was still there…

we can’t say for certain, but i would tend to think that Laws would have been the pick either way

Foos for OC in '09!
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by foos05 on Oct 9, 2008 12:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

eagles NEVER draft a RB in the first round. esp if he wasn’t a starter.. terrible analysis…

BTW it’s been 5 games. Too early to call the kid a bust… altho, he REALLY needs to improve on his pass blocking.

by Joe_D on Oct 10, 2008 12:02 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Booker

If the Offensive Line was run blocking and pass blocking better, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

The problem isn’t Booker, its the offensive line. Otherwise, why are Westbrook and Buckhalter’s numbers also way down?

Felix Jones wouldn’t be lookign any better here than Booker is.

Same thing with kick returns. The problem is not Quintin Demps, but the kick return blocking unit. Felix Jones wouldn’t be running back touchdowns on kick returns with the Eagles kick return blockers. We all know how quick Quintin Demps is from watching him race the field to down punts inside the 5.

Its all a blocking problem. Andy Reid is right about that, just like the defensive letdowns have been tackling problems.

If these basics can get taken care of, the other problems we think we are seeing actually will resolve themselves.

by Andrew B on Oct 10, 2008 12:19 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs