FanPost

The NFL Draft: Where Eagles Didn't Dare

Wentz in a while you have to take a chance.

Where eagles Dare

Quick. What’s the single hardest thing for an NFL player to do in the Super Bowl era? Apparently it’s to get drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles and then earn a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Since 1967, the beginning of the combined draft and the Super Bowl era, the Eagles drafted exactly zero players who are now in Canton. Reggie White made it, but he was a refugee from the USFL, not a player the Eagles selected on draft day. Donovan McNabb has a case for going in, but was he any better than Phil Simms? Simms, like McNabb, still has his nose pressed against the window, standing outside looking in, despite leading the Giants to two Super Bowl victories. I know Simms didn’t start the second Super Bowl due to injury, but he was still the quarterback who led the team in 1990.

Since 1967 the Eagles drafted 543 players, one of the lowest totals among the 27 teams drafting in that time, or, in the case of the Bengals, since 1968. The NFL acted more kindly toward expansion franchises in those days, and granted the Bengals 41picks in 1968. Cincinnati still ranks first in total draft picks in the Super Bowl, with 627, just ahead of Pittsburgh’s 619. That means the Bengals chose 84 more players than the Eagles, almost two extra picks a year.

The Eagles’ picks averaged 27.81 games in a Philadelphia uniform. Only the Kansas City Chiefs, Cleveland Browns, and San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers got less return from their draft picks. The draft Eagles won a combined total of 18 Super Bowl rings. Only Buffalo and Atlanta with 17 and Cincinnati with 14 saw fewer players go on to win a ring with other teams, although the Cardinals have yet to be accounted for. Washington isn’t done yet either, but they won 3 Super Bowls as a franchise, so their draft picks undoubtedly have more than 18 Super Bowl rings.

The only good news is that since 1995 and the arrival of the Panthers and Jaguars, the Eagles rank with the better drafting teams. It’s quite possible before 1995 the Eagles were the absolutely worst drafting team in the league since the common draft started in 1967, but they’ve gotten better. Before 1967 the Steelers competed with the Chicago/St. Louis Cardinals to be the worst franchise in the NFL. After 1967 the Steelers have been the best franchise in the NFL. Among the many things the Steelers began doing right were better scouting and a proper respect for the value of draft picks. Today almost all teams are loathe to surrender draft picks. Veterans schmeterans. The NFL continually needs new bodies. Unless a team believes it is a player away from a championship it should be reluctant to trade away its draft choices. Of course, all teams are always an injury away from being one more player away from a championship.

Another thing the Steelers realized that other franchises were shockingly slow to pick up on was the value of quarterbacks. In the last fifty-one years, the Eagles drafted eighteen quarterbacks, and apparently only three good ones, McNabb, Randall Cunningham, and Carson Wentz. Simply stated, Philadelphia wasn’t trying hard enough to find quarterbacks. It’s still early on Wentz, but he has been impressive. From a distance it looked like Philadelphia spent too many draft picks to acquire the second pick in the draft last year. I thought that because it wasn’t certain (as far as I knew) whether the Rams would select Jared Goff or Carson Wentz. It seemed like the Eagles gave up all those picks for the chance to select either one, but hadn’t zeroed in on one or the other. Maybe they were certain the Rams had Goff ranked higher all along, or maybe the Eagles had both guys ranked equally high, but in either case, Wentz appears to be a good choice.

This year the Chicago Bears gave up a ton to select Mitch Trubisky with the second pick. In this case, the trade was specifically and only for Mitch Trubisky. No Trubisky, no trade. Even though I believe teams should virtually never trade draft picks, especially high ones, quarterbacks warp the system a bit. If you think the next Peyton Manning is available, almost no price is too high. Quarterbacks are that important. Of course, if a team surrenders the draft picks and then chooses the wrong guy, the damage could last for years. The success of a team depends more on draft choices than any other single factor.

The Bears, like the Eagles, are now on the clock. History shows that if a team doesn’t win a Super Bowl within the first seven years of a "franchise" quarterback’s career, they probably never will. Peyton Manning and John Elway are the only two who won their first championships later than seven years into their careers. It also shows that the only time two same-year, first round quarterbacks went on to both win championships as starters was 2004 with Roethlisberger and Eli Manning. 1983 may have been the year of the quarterback, but Elway was the only one of six (Blackledge, Kelly, Marino, Eason, and O’Brien), first round quarterbacks to retire with a ring.

Eagle fans need to not just root for Wentz, they need to root against Goff and Paxton Lynch.

How the teams rank in drafting since 1967:

Key:

# of Picks: All picks chosen by the franchise since 1967

AY: All years played the picks played in the NFL

DY: All years played for the drafting team.

HY%: Percent of years played for the drafting team.

AG: All games played in the NFL.

DG: All games played for the drafting team.

HG: Percentage of games played for the drafting team.

AAG/P: Average number of NFL games per draft pick.

ADG/P: Average number of drafting team games per draft pick.

HOF: Number of Hall of Fame players drafted.

SB Rings: Number of Super Bowl rings won.

100G: Number of picks who played 100+ NFL games

100 %: Percentage of picks who played 100+ NFL games

ADCS: The number of points the team amassed in my scoring system.

AVG. ADCS: The average number of points the team earned per draft pick.

Team # of Picks AY DY HY% AG DG HG% AVCGP AVHGP HOF SB rings 100G %of Picks ADCS AVG ADCS
Tennessee 572 2327 1505 65% 29,106 19,032 65% 50.9 33.27 7 24 124 22% 55,724 97.42
Pittsburgh 619 2440 1599 66% 29,865 20,215 68% 48.24 32.66 11 212 129 21% 59,867 96.72
San Francisco 547 2053 1369 67% 25,386 17,381 68% 46.41 31.78 4 159 102 22% 50,603 92.51
Oak/LA Raiders 521 1948 1305 67% 24,026 16,737 70% 46.11 32.12 8 109 89 17% 48,065 92.26
New England 570 2163 1405 65% 26,253 17,531 67% 46.06 30.76 2 170 106 19% 51,448 90.26
Cincinnati 627 2290 1581 69% 28,623 20,202 71% 45.67 32.22 1 14 109 17% 56,010 89.33
Dallas 598 2118 1338 63% 26,921 17,167 64% 45.02 28.71 5 144 111 19% 52,574 87.92
New York G 549 1820 1306 72% 24,443 16,428 67% 44.52 29.92 3 127 97 23% 48,262 87.91
Green Bay 593 2150 1444 67% 26,055 17,872 69% 43.94 30.14 1 83 94 16% 51,295 86.50
Miami 591 2107 1317 63% 26,689 17,226 65% 45.16 29.15 5 58 122 21% 51,111 86.48
Chicago 553 1663 1349 81% 23,948 16,994 71% 43.31 30.7 4 47 89 16% 47,556 86.00
Denver 518 1804 1151 64% 22,405 14,925 67% 43.25 28.81 5 70 86 17% 44,432 85.78
Detroit 542 1915 1313 69% 23,170 17,127 74% 42.75 31.6 2 19 46,326 85.47
LA Rams 578 2154 1284 60% 26,274 16,233 62% 45.46 28.08 5 49 103 18% 49,320 85.33
New York J 574 2039 1325 65% 25,269 16,876 67% 44.02 29.4 1 32 97 17% 48,664 84.78
Indianapolis 580 2013 1274 63% 25,607 16,172 63% 46.05 29.09 4 68 48,664 83.90
Buffalo 588 2098 1348 64% 25,563 16,628 65% 43.47 28.27 5 17 49,036 83.39
Minnesota 551 1898 1279 67% 23,458 16,197 69% 42.57 29.4 4 22 92 17% 45,950 83.39
Atlanta 553 2185 1254 57% 23,632 15,794 66% 42.73 28.56 2 17 45,912 83.02
Philadelphia 543 1911 1209 63% 23,286 15,100 65% 42.88 27.81 0 18 86 16% 44,587 82.11
New Orleans 551 1901 1189 63% 23,607 14,856 63% 42.84 26.96 3 34 89 16% 44,739 81.20
Cleveland 493 1420 1081 76% 20,831 13,796 66% 42.25 27.98 1 18 39,122 79.35
LA Chargers 548 1860 1155 62% 22,658 14,173 63% 41.35 25.86 5 28 88 16% 43,119 78.68
Kansas City 552 1750 1202 69% 21,342 15,053 71% 38.66 27.27 1 21 71 13% 42,342 76.71
1,164,728 2066.42
48,530 86
Since 1995
Pittsburgh 192 853 593 70% 10,387 7,424 71% 54.1 38.67 0 62 44 23% 21,014 109.44
New York G 188 799 550 69% 9,619 6,732 70% 51.16 35.81 0 51 34 18% 19,165 101.94
New York J 189 798 493 62% 10,058 6,540 65% 53.21 34.6 0 10 39 21% 18,991 100.41
San Francisco 190 787 538 68% 9,708 6,662 69% 51.09 35.06 0 10 43 23% 18,902 99.48
Philadelphia 196 832 519 62% 10,147 6,592 65% 51.77 33.63 0 10 38 19% 19,299 98.46
Oak/LA Raiders 178 728 480 66% 8,941 5,964 67% 50.23 33.51 0 6 29 16% 17,139 96.28
Jacksonville 190 781 534 68% 9,309 6,456 69% 48.99 33.98 0 6 39 21% 18,209 95.84
LA Rams 194 798 495 62% 9,670 6,144 64% 49.85 31.67 1 26 30 15% 18,510 95.41
New Orleans 152 614 393 64% 7,530 4,980 66% 49.54 32.76 0 22 28 18% 14,498 95.38
Kansas City 178 702 478 68% 8,574 6,000 70% 48.17 33.71 0 5 30 17% 16,827 94.53
Minnesota 189 728 501 69% 8,863 6,190 70% 46.89 32.75 2 9 31 16% 17,389 92
Denver 183 726 440 61% 8,810 5,449 62% 48.14 29.78 1 49 32 17% 16,770 91.64
Miami 187 721 431 60% 9,087 5,673 62% 48.59 30.33 1 5 39 21% 17,077 91.32
LA Chargers 170 668 459 69% 8,100 5,603 69% 47.65 32.96 1 9 26 15% 15,865 93.32
249,655 1355.45
19204.23 96.69

Posted in Draft day, Philadelphia Eagles