The Eagles' roster tree: how picks, FAs, and trades built the current team

Someone at Fear The Fin made a nifty chart of how the Sharks' roster was built, tracing every current player back to a pick originally owned by the Sharks or a free agent signed by the Sharks.

We admired (by which I mean stole) the idea at Broad Street Hockey, and I got curious about how it would look for the Eagles, who make so many draft-day moves. We'll find out after the jump.

I took the entire current roster from the BGN sidebar and first made a list of the players who were acquired directly as free agents, from draft picks the Eagles originally owned, or from waivers. Here's how that looks:

Signed as free agents (44): Ronnie Brown, DeAndre Brown, Graig Cooper, Chad Hall, Rod Harper, Ryan Harris, Johnnie Lee Higgins, Austin Howard, Jamaal Jackson, Jerrod Johnson, Gerald Jones, Jeremy LaFrance, Donald Lee, Derrick Locke, Evan Mathis, Sinorice Moss, John Nalbone, Dallas Reynolds, Owen Schmitt, A.Q. Shipley, Terrance Turner, Michael Vick, Martell Webb, Vince Young, Jamar Adams, Colt Anderson, Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin, Joselio Hanson, Brandon Hughes, Phillip Hunt, Marlin Jackson, Rashad Jeanty, Cullen Jenkins, Akeem Jordan, Jarrad Page, Juqua Parker, Brandon Peguese, Asante Samuel, Terence Thomas, Cedric Thornton, Jamar Wall, Jon Dorenbos, Chas Henry. And probably four more by the time this gets posted, the way things are going lately.

Claimed off of waivers (3): Eldra Buckley, Antonio Dixon, Isaiah Trufant.

Drafted with the Eagles' own picks (12): Brent Celek (#162 2007), DeSean Jackson (#49 2008), LeSean McCoy (#53 2009), Danny Watkins (#23 2011), Victor Abiamiri (#57 2007), Keenan Clayton (#121 2010), Moise Fokou (#230 2009), Jaiquawn Jarrett (#54 2011), Mike Patterson (#31 2005), Alex Henery (#120 2011), Stanley Havili (#240 2011), Greg Lloyd (#237 2011). The last two were compensation picks for the loss of Jason Babin and Sean Jones, but I thought it would be misleading to include those guys on the chart below.

That leaves 28 guys who were acquired via trade or via a draft pick that was acquired via trade. Here's their history, in a pictorial nutshell (click for a zoom-able image):

I'll walk through Jason Avant's football ancestry to explain how to read the chart.

The Eagles traded the 132nd pick in 2005 (which was used on Chris Canty) and the 182nd pick in 2006 (which was used on Montavious Stanley, the best Montavious ever to play in the NFL) for the 148th pick in 2005. They also got a fourth round pick in 2006 in the deal, but since that pick isn't part of any current Eagle's lineage, it's not shown on the chart.

The 148th pick in 2005 (used on Jonathan Welsh) was traded for the 127th pick in 2006 (which was used on Ray Edwards). The 127th pick in 2006 and Artis Hicks (whom the Eagles acquired as a free agent signing, so he has no precursors on this chart) were packaged together to acquire the 115th pick in 2006 and the 185th pick in 2006.

Those picks were in turn traded for the 109th pick in 2006, which the Eagles used to select Jason Avant. Simple, right?

Jimmy talked last year about the cascade of picks resulting from the Eagles trading out of the #55 pick, and the chart shows graphically how that turned into six players under contract right now. At the other end of the scale, you can see four different picks all merge together to form Trevard Lindley, Voltron-style.

Here's a different way of looking at things: which draft picks originally owned by the Eagles were used on or traded for players on the current roster? Take a look at this table:

Reading down, you can see the relative impact on the current roster of each round. The Eagles' first round picks have had a hand in producing 12 players on the current roster, the most of any round -- but not by a huge margin, as most rounds have led to around six players. Interestingly -- ok, maybe that's stretching it, but curiously, the last seven seventh round picks have collectively had a hand in acquiring seven players on the current roster.

Reading across, you can see which years' picks had fruitful picks. None of the picks that the Eagles originally owned in 2003 or 2004 resulted in players still on the roster, while almost all of the 2005 picks did (mostly because they were all packaged for Todd Herremans in a miniature version of Ditka's acquisition of Ricky Williams).

Finally, I looked at who ended up being picked with the picks that the Eagles traded away, and noticed an interesting trend. With a few exceptions (Jeff Otah to the Panthers with the 2008 1st rounder, Steve Johnson to the Bills with the 2008 7th rounder, and Jahri Evans to the Saints with the 2006 4th rounder), it seems like every pick the Eagles trade away has ended up in the hands of the Cowboys. Dez Bryant, Sean Lee, Anthony Spencer, and Chris Canty were all taken with draft picks the Eagles originally owned. Coincidence? Yeah, I suppose so.

So that's the story. Hope you enjoyed it.