Thus begins an annual exercise to plot out a worst-case scenario for the Eagles’ haul in the NFL Draft. The goal here is to keep things as realistic as possible. The Eagles aren’t going to draft a kicker in the first round or spend their first three picks on running backs. Every player below is slotted into the correct round according to Dane Brugler’s “Beast,” and each decision is one Howie Roseman and the Eagles could realistically make. Even if we know the draft is a crapshoot, it’s still worth trying to avoid bad bets.
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(Trade) Round 1, No. 12 overall – Ohio State WR Chris Olave
Eagles send No. 15 overall and the first of their two third-round picks, No. 83 overall, to Minnesota in exchange for No. 12 overall
In this scenario, let’s say Jameson Williams and Garrett Wilson are both off the board in the first 11 picks and the Eagles get antsy about adding an NFL-ready wide receiver.
Last year, the Eagles surrendered No. 84 overall to move up two spots from No. 12 to No. 10. Back in 2012, they made this exact move up, from No. 15 to No. 12, to select Fletcher Cox and surrendered a fourth- and sixth-round pick in the process. Maybe the price feels a touch steep, but that’s just part of what would make this plan a bad one. Worse, moving up and surrendering real draft capital for a wide receiver when there’s so little certainty about the position league-wide would be foolish with other receivers guaranteed to be available if the Eagles stand pat at No. 15.
If you’re looking for a Pro Bowl-caliber player, the first round is less of a guarantee at wide receiver than almost any other position.
As for Olave, the general consensus seems to be that he’s the most pro-ready wide receiver in the draft but that his ceiling is lower than the likes of Williams, Wilson, Drake London and Treylon Burks. I’m generally wary of players with that profile, especially when there’s an easy explanation for why he seems more polished than the others. In this case, Olave played four seasons of college football while the others all played three. Even with those four years, Olave was less productive than the other four. Four-year players from big schools without 1,000-yard seasons do not often make waves in the league.
Then again, Ohio State has produced a few outliers in recent years, including Michael Thomas and Terry McLaurin, who also played four years and was even less productive in college than Olave. Deebo Samuel also had a similar profile to Olave even if he’s a different kind of player. So this is not to say that Olave is a bad prospect, or that he definitely won’t live up to expectations as a first-round pick. But trading up to select him would be a show of certainty when there is none.
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Round 1, No. 18 overall – Georgia DT Devonte Wyatt
Reasonable minds can disagree here. Wyatt is Brugler’s No. 1 defensive tackle. Writes Brugler: “Wyatt needs to play with better control and play recognition, but he fires off the ball and competes with the speed and effort to make an impact on all three downs. Wyatt has NFL starting skills and is the best three-technique tackle in this draft class.”
The Eagles also have a long-term need at defensive tackle given the organizational priority placed on the defensive line. Fletcher Cox was re-signed to a one-year deal and will be 32 later this year. Javon Hargrave is scheduled to be a free agent next offseason and, though he could be signed to an extension before then, he’s already 29. Milton Williams looks like a building block-type player, but there’s nothing set behind him. In theory, grabbing the draft’s top defensive tackle at No. 18 would be ideal.
I’m just not buying Wyatt’s profile. I can and will be annoyingly repetitive about prospect age, but Wyatt’s is a concern as is his lack of collegiate production. He turned 24 in March and had 2.5 sacks in his breakout 2021 season. Of the 26 initial Pro Bowl or first-team All-Pro defensive tackles over the past 10 seasons, only three turned 24 during their rookie season and all of them were selected after the first round. Shrink the sample to just the 15 who were selected in the first round and 12 of them were 22 or younger as rookies.
Flip things to focus on the lack of sack production and it’s again difficult to find someone with Wyatt’s profile who became a star. Only two of the aforementioned 26 defensive tackles had as few as 2.5 sacks in their most productive college season; Dontari Poe, who had a different body type than Wyatt as a pure nose tackle, and Grady Jarrett, who was a fifth-round pick. Old and unproductive is just not a good bet at the position.
Still, there is nuance. Wyatt and Jordan Davis share the lack of production question, as does Travon Walker. With so many good players on the same defensive line, maybe there are too many mouths to feed sacks into. And even if Wyatt may not have Pro Bowl upside, he can still be a fine piece of the rotational puzzle. Maybe that’s good enough for the 18th overall pick in a weak defensive tackle draft. It’s just a little unexciting.
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Round 2, No. 51 overall – Central Michigan T Bernhard Raimann
Raimann turns 25 in September, so we’re dealing with another age issue. But that’s only part of the problematic puzzle here. A native of Austria, Raimann only moved to tackle two years ago after starting his college career at tight end. He still needs seasoning and development, which Jeff Stoutland could certainly provide. But with Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson entrenched as the starting tackles, Raimann would be waiting in the wings to take over for Johnson at some undetermined point in the future while wasting his athletic prime.
Howie Roseman made a point of emphasizing the Eagles’ desire not to block playing time for their early-round picks in 2022. Drafting a player who wouldn’t be expected to start until his age-26 or 27 season would fly in the face of that.
Meanwhile, history suggests that second-round tackles are a worse bet for Pro Bowl upside than most other positions. Only quarterback and edge rusher have a smaller percentage of their best players drafted in the second and third round over the last 10 years.
Round 3, No. 101 overall – Miami (Ohio) Edge Dominique Robinson
Like Raimann, Robinson is an older project at a position with limited Day 2 success. A former wide receiver who only transitioned to edge in 2020, Robinson is nearly 6-foot-5, 253 pounds and has a third-round grade from Brugler. “Overall, Robinson needs to improve versus the run and develop his countermeasures,” Brugler writes, “but he has exciting pass-rush potential thanks to his athletic traits. He may require time on the practice squad before earning a sub-package role in the NFL.”
Robinson had a career-high 4.5 sacks in 2021. The only four of 45 Pro Bowl/All-Pro edge rushers over the past 10 seasons who had fewer than five sacks in their best college season were either athletic marvels (Ezekiel Ansah, Chandler Jones, Danielle Hunter) or went undrafted altogether (Michael Bennett). And though Robinson played wide receiver, he didn’t test as well as you might expect athletically with a 98th-percentile vertical jump but just above-average results in the 40-yard dash, 10-yard split and three-cone.
Once again, we’re also dealing with a position with limited Day 2 success and a longer path to legitimate playing time for an older player. Still, there are things to like about Robinson as a prospect, and a team that finished 31st in sack rate can’t really afford to thumb its nose at pass-rush help of any kind. Even the worst-case scenario has a chance of working out sometimes.
Round 4, No. 124 overall – San Diego State P Matt Araiza
This one’s taken directly from Brugler’s recent seven-round mock draft. With apologies to our friends at Puntalytics, this would just be too heavy an investment for the position. But the Eagles have always been attracted to oddities, and Roseman did draft a kicker in the fourth round once upon a time.
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Araiza is a booming open-field punter, which is where the Eagles struggled last season with Arryn Siposs at the helm. As they wrote on the Puntalytics big board, “Araiza fits perfectly with an analytically sound team that punts as little as possible beyond their own 40. The issue is that no team this analytically sound would draft a punter high enough to land Araiza.”
This would also mean four rounds passing without the Eagles adding any help in the defensive back seven.
Round 5, No. 154 overall – Houston CB Damarion Williams
Richard Sherman was the 154th overall pick back in 2011, so maybe there’s some cornerback luck here. But Williams falls short of a few benchmarks as a prospect. He’s, you guessed it, old (he turns 24 in July). He’s also on the slower side for a cornerback prospect, with a 4.53-second 40-yard dash. And his 29 5/8-inch arms are shorter than the previous low for a Pro Bowler (31 inches). That hasn’t stopped Avonte Maddox from being a serviceable player, but it’s part of why Williams profiles as a likely slot corner.
More to the point, the Eagles stockpiled young cornerbacks in 2021 to avoid having to add numbers to the position this offseason. Is adding a long shot like Williams to the likes of Zech McPhearson, Kary Vincent Jr., Tay Gowan, Josiah Scott and Mac McCain worth it relative to the odds of how helpful a fifth-rounder might be to the depth of another position? The Eagles need a blue-chip player at the position, not more filler.
For the good news on Williams, here’s Brugler: “Overall, Williams doesn’t have high-level size or speed, but his feisty play personality, lower-body twitch and nose for the ball are translatable traits.”
Round 5, No. 162 overall – Louisiana S Percy Butler
This is nothing in particular against Butler as a prospect, who is graded by Brugler as a fifth-round player. He ran a blazing 4.36-second 40-yard dash at the combine after starting for three years as a free safety. Butler falls within range in every athletic test and physical measurement and seems like a fine enough gamble to take at this stage of the draft. And he only turns 22 in May, lest you think this is just a list of old prospects.
“Overall, Butler needs to play with more control and create more on-ball opportunities for himself, but his linear speed and ascending instincts are attractive traits for a developmental safety,” writes Brugler. “His special teams value alone should get him drafted.”
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What makes this a worst-case scenario for the Eagles would be the notion that a fifth-round dice roll alone is enough to address the franchise’s safety depth. If Tyrann Mathieu signs elsewhere and the Eagles convince themselves Anthony Harris, Marcus Epps, K’Von Wallace and Butler are good enough for the safety room, that would be a bummer.
And just to recycle another stat, safety has the lowest percentage of non-Power 5 Pro Bowlers/All-Pros over the past 10 years.
Round 5, No. 166 overall – Michigan G Andrew Stueber
Again, we’re not in the business of trashing late-round prospects. Stueber does not quite fit Stoutland’s preference for physical outliers, though he is one of several guards in this draft class with a notably bad vertical jump. He has starting experience at right tackle and right guard and would add to the Eagles’ logjam of young backup offensive linemen — which is why the pick would be sort of uninspiring. The Eagles will always value fortifying the offensive line under Howie Roseman, but the opportunity cost of drafting what would be a second offensive lineman in the fifth round in this scenario is failing to address a host of other depth-needy positions on the roster.
Writes Brugler: “Stueber has NFL size, length and smarts, but he doesn’t have the athleticism to hold up at tackle and needs to improve his balance and sustain skills to earn a living at guard. He has the potential to be a dependable backup who can step in and hold his own if asked to pinch hit as a starting guard.”
Round 7, No. 237 overall – Utah LB Nephi Sewell
OK, fine, one more overager, though only slightly. Sewell turns 24 in December, which is fine. He’s actually an interesting prospect who moved to linebacker in 2020 after playing safety early in his career, including at Nevada before he transferred to Utah. He was the Robin to Devin Lloyd’s Batman at linebacker over the past two seasons. For what it’s worth, he is undersized at 5-11, 226 pounds, has short arms relative to the position and tested as just an average athlete at the position. He has a good chance of being a contributor on special teams.
“Sewell’s tweener traits and short arms will remove him from consideration for NFL teams with firm length thresholds,” writes Brugler, “but his play anticipation, quickness and intangibles are NFL-quality and can earn him a role in sub-packages.”
The bad news here is the Eagles fail to address the help they need at linebacker until the seventh round and do so with a player without real starting upside. Linebacker, perhaps contrary to popular belief, has the lowest percentage of Pro Bowl/All-Pro players drafted on Day 3 or not at all over the past 10 seasons.
Here’s the full, realistic worst-case scenario draft class:
• WR Chris Olave
• DT Devonte Wyatt
• T Bernhard Raimann
• DE Dominique Robinson
• P Matt Araiza
• CB Damarion Williams
• S Percy Butler
• G Andrew Stueber
• LB Nephi Sewell
That means no help to the skill positions outside of Olave, no immediate help at linebacker, cornerback or safety, a pair of long-shot bets on the defensive line and a premium pick spent on an old understudy. Could it be worse? You should hope not.
(Photo of Chris Olave: Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)