FanPost

Ruminations About the 2010 Eagles Draft

[Note by JasonB, 05/07/12 3:14 PM EDT ] Promoted from fanposts


Now that we have reached the point where there is a lot of talk about this being a make or break year for the Eagles 2010 draft class I thought it would be a good time to review my feelings while it was going on.

I can't remember ever being as excited about any draft as I was about the 2010 Eagles draft. There was a sense that we were on the cusp of something new and fun. Donovan McNabb had been traded at the beginning of the month and some key vets had been sent packing including our beloved Brian Westbrook. We were going into the draft with extra picks in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th rounds so we knew going in that the Eagles were about to bring in a haul and had the ammo to move around in the draft virtually at will. And move around they did.

This is not going to be an attempt to judge or grade the 2010 draft. I just want to review what happened and what my thinking was at the time.

Amazingly the Eagles, either before or during the draft, controlled 27 different draft picks. That means that more than 10% of the 255 total picks made went thru the hands of the Eagles front office at one time or another. The Eagles ended up using 13 of those picks on players, which was the most by any team in 2010. Another interesting fact is that the hated rival Cowboys drafted at the Eagles designated pick in both the first and second rounds selecting Dez Bryant and Sean Lee so I guess if those players become All Pros a thank you card is in order.

Well, to start with, I don't know about you but the new start on Thursday night really messed with my regular draft watching program. Normally i would wake up get my coffee and newspapers, read what the local guys have to say about the draft, then I settle in front of the TV with my laptop and watch the predraft stuff while reading as many mocks as I can find. Going off to work and coming home to only see one round sucked compared to the all day three round extravaganza that it was.

Going into the Draft I had a few players I hoped the Eagles would draft. I liked Maurkice Pouncey although I'm a little old school in that I'm not completely sold on taking a Center in the 1st but he would have filled one of the big needs. In hindsight it would have been a good pickup but would have required a trade up and with my preexisting reservations about drafting centers I'll admit I would have been pissed if they did. I liked Kyle Wilson, another need filler. I also liked Sean Weatherspoon. Trust me though I had no expectations that the Eagles would take a LB in the 1st. But the guy I really wanted was Brandon Graham. I didn't see Graham lasting until the 24th pick in the draft and figured we would have to move up to the 18-20 range to get him.

Once the draft started everything was going along pretty much how all the prognosticators had predicted. I have to admit I felt a little pang of pain as KC selected Eric Berry even though I knew the trade up to 5 would be prohibitively expensive. I wasn't long after that the announcement came down that the Eagles had traded up to the 13th pick. When the trade was announced only two names came to mind Earl Thomas, who I didn't like mainly because I half expect all U of Texas players to be busts, and Derrrick Morgan, who I did like but hadn't really considered predraft because I thought he'd go much higher. When the Eagles selected Graham I have to admit I had some mixed feelings. I was happy that they selected the player that I wanted but I thought they went a little to high for him and I didn't like that they had passed on Morgan (looks like I may have been wrong on that one), who I didn't think the Eagles had a shot at. As the draft continued I became hopeful that one of the top tier CBs were going to drop to us at 37. Those hopes were dashed when four CBs were drafted between 27 and 34.

Day two of the draft started out with a lot of promise. There were some great prospects left on the board and the Eagles held two picks in the second round. The players available at the start of the second whom I coveted were, Brian Price because I thought he was a great value in the second and I wasn't satisfied with DTs that were on the team. I was also intrigued with Dexter McCluster. At that time I wasn't sold on just McCoy as our full time running back(silly me). When 37 came and the two guys I wanted most were gone I really hoped that this was a great opportunity to trade back to Cleveland or Carolina or some other QB needy team that was coveting Clauson or McCoy and score a nice haul but alas at 37 the Eagles picked Nate Allen. At the time I thought the Eagles passed on a chance to garner possibly a 1st next year but as Clauson and McCoy continued their slide I realized their value was not as high as I had assumed. In addition, with Allen, we had one of the top prospects at a position of desperate need so I really couldn't complain.

When pick #55 was approaching and with me being a Penn State fan I began to get excited about the prospect of drafting Sean Lee or Navarro Bowman but instead we got a long, slow, maddeningly frustrating death march down the draft board as the eagles traded down three times before making their next selection. I created a flow chart to make it easy to follow what the Eagles did there.

L_medium

via www.gliffy.com


I'll admit that i was pulling my hair out with each successive trade but all was about to be forgiven as pick #86 was approaching and the guy I would have been happy with in the second round, Navarro Bowman, was still on the board. But alas it was not to be as the Eagles selected Daniel Te'o Nesheim over Bowman. I'll be honest and say that I'd be lucky to have heard the name of half the prospects drafted before the draft but I always get a sense of dread when after the Eagles make a draft pick there is a long pause by the announcers as they stare at each other followed by a couple of seconds of stammering while they rifle through their notes to find some info on the guy drafted. That was the case here as I realized the Eagles tradition of taking a reachy flyer on a guy in the third round was alive and well.

After the third round I can't really say that I was all that familiar with the players the Eagles drafted as I watched the draft to it's conclusion and it's always been my contention that it's like throwing darts at a dart board and hoping that you hit a bullseye, like Celek, Herrimans, or Cole or at least find some adequate backups and special teamers after the third round. so i was more or less just trying to get info on the players drafted without much of an opinion about them one way or the other.

To wrap this up I'll say that after getting more info on the players drafted and reading the reviews of the draft by people that know a lot more about the players drafted then I did I was pleased with the overall draft