Let's first start by saying that we can really tell nothing about a draft until about three or four years down the road.
The only thing you can tell the day after a draft is to look at what a team's needs were, and then ask if they attempted to address those needs.
You can never tell if a player will be able to play at the next level, but you can at least look and see if the team tried to fill their holes. It looks like the Eagles did.
So let's take a look at the Eagles draft this past weekend:
What I liked…
-I liked that the Eagles got a proven, young left tackle and got him signed up to a long-term deal. Unless you are able to swing a trade for a rare commodity like this, you can never, ever say the day after the draft that you know for sure that you got a player who can play at a high level in this league. You could have drafted Jonathon Ogden, or you could have picked up Tony Mandarich.
-Jeremy Maclin…wow. I thought for sure that the Eagles would grab Pettigrew when they leaped ahead of the Lions. My thinking was that the Lions have no TE whatsoever and they would need to make a trade for that to happen. But that wasn't the case and it seems they traded up because there were several other teams trying to jump into the Maclin sweepstakes after a bit of a free fall.
I had seen Maclin going as high as five or seven in the first round and he was touted as an elite talent in this draft. Let's thank the Raiders for being so stupid and grabbing Heyward-Bey at #7. I'm not saying the guy can't play, but he was projected to go at the bottom of the first round. They could have traded down and grabbed him. Maclin was the value pick at seven, so the fact that the Eagles were able to nab him at #19 is a good thing. Provided….you know….that he can play.
-I will go on record as saying I'm not big on LeSean McCoy, but I love where they were able to grab him (if that makes any sense). He was a potential first rounder that slipped as he went through his interviews and workouts. I don't think he's all that fast, but there are a lot of people that like him, so let's hope I'm wrong. Still, I like the value of the pick and it addressed a glaring need, so I'm not going to complain. In 1999, I called Jevon Kearse a workout warrior that would be a bust at the NFL level. So yeah, take me scouting with a grain of salt.
-I love the value of the Cornelius Ingram pick. Can you tell I'm all about value? I saw one description of him that said he was the best athlete on the Florida football team. That's not calling someone the best jump shooter on the Sixers. That's a real accolade. He dropped to the fifth because he had a knee injury that kept him out of all 2008. But, I read many places that said he looked like he was back to form in his workouts. He would seem to me to be worth a flyer in the fifth round. Especially when you own every selection in the fifth round.
...And not so much:
-I really don't have much to complain about. I didn't understand the hole between McCoy and Ingram. They must really have not liked anyone in that area of the draft because they continued to trade down over and over (and their fourth was to the Bills for the Peters trade). It's probably a good thing that they dumped picks towards the end. They just had too many picks and they aren't the Lions, so they don't have much room to keep these guys.
