On Roob’s Notes: How free agency made Howie Roseman’s job in the draft easier originally appeared in NBC Sports Philadelphia
What free agency means for Howie Roseman in the draft, the worst season by an Eagles running back and a look at how many members of the 2017 Super Bowl team will end up in the Eagles Hall of Fame.
And a star of the 1960 NFL championship team who is inexplicably not in the Eagles Hall of Fame.
Here’s help this weekend with Roob’s 10 Random Eagles off-season observations.
1. Howie Roseman has covered almost every position in free agency. The Eagles added an edge rusher (Bryce Huff), an off-ball linebacker (Devin White), a couple of hybrid linebackers (Oren Burks, Zach Baum), an outside cornerback (assuming Isaiah Rodgers is cleared soon), a nickel corner who he had already thrown (Avonte Maddox), a safety (Chauncey Gardner-Johnson), a running back (Saquon Barkley), two receivers (Parris Campbell, DeVante Parker), an offensive lineman (Matt Hennessy) and a few quarterbacks (Kenny Pickett, Will Grier). Taken individually, some are huge moves, others are smaller moves. But taken as a whole, what these measures do is give Roseman the luxury of having every position covered in the draft. Roseman is not in a position where he HAS to add any specific position. He’s already added a big or small piece at every spot on the field, and that allows him to enter the draft without having to take anything. He can just let the draft come to him and actually pick the best player available at a position of need. Even in the intermediate rounds he doesn’t need to arrive because he already has one of everything. Signing Parker and Campbell doesn’t mean he won’t draft a receiver. And hiring Huff doesn’t mean he won’t create an advantage. It just means he doesn’t need it. It’s a healthy place to enter a draft with three of the first 53 players for the first time in 30 years.
two. I’m not sure how this is possible, but only four of the last 34 players selected 22It is Overall, they made a Pro Bowl. Demaryius Thomas has had five, Justin Jefferson has had three so far, and Percy Harvin and Desmond Trufant have had one each. Incredibly, Trufant is the only defender taken 22It is to make a Pro Bowl in the last 40 years – since 1983, choose Gill Byrd. Some of the disastrous 22-year-old picks over the years: JP Losman, Johnny Manziel, Brady Quinn, Josh Doctson and Chris McIntosh. Andre Dillard was also 22It is. The only Hall of Famer to rank 22nd was Ernie Stautner in 1950. Maybe Howie really should trade that 22nd spot.It is choice.
3A. How crazy is it that in the 1986 Eagles draft, Seth Joyner was selected 8thth round and Clyde Simmons at 9th round? Two rounds that don’t even exist anymore. They are two of the greatest defensive players in Eagles history and if they had come out of college in the last 30 years, they wouldn’t have been drafted.
3B. One of the greatest and most underrated undrafted players in Eagles history is Don “The Blade” Burroughs, who spent his first five years with the Rams and his last five with the Eagles – from 1960 to 1964. Burroughs had 50 career interceptions, 29 of which they were with the Eagles. Burroughs is not only the only player in Eagles history with three consecutive seasons with seven or more interceptions, he is the only one with three seasons at any point with seven or more INTs. He had nine INTs in the 1960 NFL championship season and then seven in each of the next two years. Despite playing just 64 games in an Eagles uniform, Burroughs ranks sixth in Eagles history with 29 interceptions, behind only Eric Allen, Bill Bradley and Brian Dawkins (34 each), Herm Edwards (33) and Wes Hopkins ( 30) – who each played more than 100 games with the Eagles. Burroughs is inexplicably not in the Eagles Hall of Fame.
4A. Dave Z. and I were looking back at the careers of Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox on our latest Eagle Eye podcast, and we started to ponder how many other members of the 2017 Super Bowl championship team would end up inducted into the Eagles Hall of Fame. It’s tricky because they only induct two people a year, so it might take a while for all the deserving guys on that team to be recognized. But beyond Kelce and Cox, you have to think that Lane Johnson, Malcolm Jenkins, Brandon Graham, Jason Peters and Zach Ertz are locks. Nick Foles has to come in. Jake Elliott will almost certainly join as well. There are nine. Brandon Brooks is on edge. He only played four full seasons here, but he made three Pro Bowls and was a beast on that 2017 team. Brent Celek and Rodney McLeod are close, but probably not quite at the Hall of Fame level. Carson Wentz? In fact, you can probably argue — he had three of the five best statistical seasons by a quarterback in Eagles history — but that’s not going to happen. But even if it’s Kelce, Fletch, Lane, Malcolm, BG, JP, Ertz, Foles and Jake, that’s a lot. They all had very long, productive careers with the Eagles except one guy, and he was the Super Bowl MVP.
4B. If nine guys from that 2017 team made it to the Eagles Hall of Fame, would that be the most ever? In fact, that would tie the record. The 1960 team had nine (Maxie Baughan, Chuck Bednarik, Tom Brookshier, Timmy Brown, Sonny Jurgensen, Tommy McDonald, Pete Retzlaff, Norm Van Brocklin, Bobby Walston). The 1961 team had eight (the same as 1960 minus Van Brocklin) and seven teams have had seven, most recently in 1991 (Eric Allen, Jerome Brown, Randall Cunningham, Seth Joyner, Mike Quick, Clyde Simmons and Reggie White). The last team that had an Eagles Hall of Famer was 2010, David Akers’ last year here. The last team without any was 1942.
5. The Eagles’ obsession with drafting first-round offensive linemen dates back long before Howie Roseman and even before Andy Reid and Joe Banner. This goes back to Tom Heckert and even Harry Gamble, two GMs of the Eagles in the 1990s. Starting in 1991, the Eagles used eight straight games of 1st-round choose offensive or defensive attackers. Most of them were terrible. The approach was right, but they simply didn’t know how to evaluate the players. Since 1991, the Eagles have drafted 31 players in the first round, and only eight have been non-forwards. Of those 31, 14 were defensive linemen and nine were power forwards. The others were five wide receivers (Freddie Mitchell, Jeremy Maclin, Nelson Agholor, Jalen Reagor, DeVonta Smith), two quarterbacks (Donovan McNabb, Carson Wentz) and one cornerback (Lito Sheppard). So, if at any point in the last 33 years you predicted that the Eagles would select a defensive lineman in the first round, you would have been correct 74% of the time.
6. AJ Brown’s 2,952 receiving yards over the past two years are the most in NFL history by a veteran in his first 34 games with a new team. The only three WRs with more yards in their first 34 games with any team are Odell Beckham Jr. (3,385), Justin Jefferson (3,200) and Ja’Marr Chase (2,977), all with the teams that drafted them. The previous record by a non-rookie was Brandon Marshall’s 2,922 yards in his first 34 games with the Bears from 2012 through early 2014. I always thought it would be impossible to top the Jason Peters deal as the biggest trade in franchise history , but Howie could have done it with the Brown trade.
7. What was the worst season for an Eagles running back? In 1970, rookie Lee Bouggess had 159 carries for 401 yards and a 2.5 average. That’s the lowest in NFL history with 150 or more carries. Bouggess, the 3 of the EaglesthirdPick from Louisville, averaging less than 4.0 yards per carry in all 13 games he played in. In a game against the Dolphins, he had 12 carries for two yards – an average of six inches per carry. During a three-game stretch against the Dolphins, Falcons and Giants, he rushed 43 times for 65 yards with a 1.5 average – the worst in NFL history in a three-game stretch for a running back with 40 or more carries. . In 1971, Bouggess improved to 2.7 yards per carry on 97 rushing attempts and after missing 1972 with a knee injury, he averaged 2.3 on just 15 carries in 1973, his final season in the NFL. Overall, he averaged 2.57 yards on 271 career rushing attempts, the lowest average in NFL history for a running back with at least 250 carries. He had 13 career games with 10 or more carries and never averaged 4.0 yards in any of them. Bouggess had 50 receptions as a rookie, tied with Miles Sanders for the most all-time by an Eagles rookie running back. But as a runner? Worst ever.
8. Here is the complete list of every running back in NFL history to average 5.5 yards per carry in the postseason (minimum 20 carries) and also score at least three touchdowns: Marion Motley, Terrell Davis, Zack Crockett, Raheem Mostert and Boston Scott.
9. I feel like the Eagles are much more likely to trade up than down – and I also think they’re more likely to trade up than stay at 22. And while we’ve talked a lot in recent weeks about trade candidates – defensive lineman UCLA’s Laiatu Latu, Alabama offensive lineman J.C. Latham, Washington tackle Troy Fautanu, Toledo corner Quinyon Mitchell — there’s a chance Howie Roseman gets out of 22 by trading and getting good value while also adding picks. It takes a team that wants to get to 22 and I’m not sure that will be the case, but if the Eagles trade up, there are some guys that could make sense. Oklahoma offensive tackle Tyler Guyton could be available near the end of the first round, speedy Texas receiver Xavier Worthy could likely be had early in the second round and the same with Missouri corner Ennis Rakestraw Jr. good depth this year. There could be seven 1st-offensive rounds and four or five corners. This means that a good amount will be reduced. No one is better at finding that value than Roseman.
10. The oldest player in Eagles history to catch a pass was kicker Sam Baker, who caught just seven passes in his career but had a three-yard catch on a fake Joe Scarpati field goal in a 12-0 win over the Eagles. Lions in Tiger. Stadium on November 28, 1968, at 39 years and 16 days. Baker also made four field goals in that game and is the last NFL player to catch a pass and kick four field goals in the same game. The finish was the only one of Scarpati’s career.
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