BillyV's Blog

5/6/08 (updated)

The Eagles first post-draft mini-cmp is over.  The rookies will come back again for another session May 21st.   The camp will be all about teaching them, but the process of  bringing them slowly into the system will continue all year.  Andy Reid's not going to play these guys any more than he played rookies Kevin Kolb, Vicotr Abiamiri and Tony Hunt last year.   

 

 

 

Like most fans, I want instant gratification;  I would like to see the Eagles draft to fill their immediate needs and give the team a legitimate shot at a Super Bowl.  But that's not how Andy Reid approaches things.

 

 If he did, he could have drafted Rashard Mendenhall, the running back from Illinois, who was available.  When I had interviewed Fox NFL football analyst Brian Baldinger a couple of weeks ago, the former Eagle, who watches so much tape of the players, he suggested that Mendenhall would be the ideal pick for the Eagles.  Baldy thought Mendenhall would join with Brian Westbrook to give the Eagles a great 1-2 punch and a lot of flexibility to sometimes use them both at once.  At that time, I thought there was no way Mendenhall would be available, because most mock drafts had him going in the top 10-12 picks. 

 

 

 

But Andy Reid is very consistent.  He doesn’t run the ball, anyway, so why in the world would he use a first-round pick on a running back? 

 

 

 

By the same token, when people argue that a running back could make an immediate impact, they’re forgetting that Reid doesn’t play rookies, anyway.

 

 

 

Why would Reid, the Executive Vice President of Football Operations, draft players that Reid, the coach, won’t use anyway?

 

 

 

So when Andy trades down out of the first round to get a future Number One pick, it’s consistent with the way he goes about doing everything else.  I don’t like the fact that he doesn’t run the ball. I don’t like the fact that he doesn’t play rookies.  But I can’t say he’s not consistent.

 

 

 

Besides, there were a lot of mock drafts that had the Eagles selecting a receiver at #19, and they ended up with a WR who’s probably as good as anyone in the draft, taking DeSean Jackson in the 2nd round.  Granted, most people had Devin Thomas of Michigan State as the top wideout, but Greg Cosell, NFL Films Producer who also looks at tons of tape says Thomas can’t run routes worth a darn.  He feels there was no WR worthy of a first round pick in this draft.

 

 

 

Of course, a guy can learn to run routes, but like so many other receivers, he’s not going to be much of a factor in his first year or two or three.  A look at wide receivers taken in the first round last year proves that.  Two, Calvin Johnson and Dwayne Bowe, had more than 40 catches, but there were four other WR's taken in the first round who didn't. 

But Jackson could have some impact based on pure speed.  He ran the fastest time at the combine for any receiver.

 

 

 

I do wish the Eagles had done more with the bunches of later round picks they acquired; I thought sure, when they kept getting more and more of those picks, that they had some plan to package some of them and get something really good.  Instead, they took a lot of guys in the 6th round that probably won’t even make the team. 

 

 

 

So, there was some good, some bad, in my view.  What’s yours?