2021 Draft Discussion

[MDS]

they should take a qb in the 2nd round

[SD]

Zaven Collins is my next target

Assante Samuel is my target. Probably goes late 1st so have to trade up

[PhillyPhreak54]

I'm cool with Asante's kid. He's a player.

Wash took my second fave LB

[Diomedes]

He looks like a bust to me.

[Diomedes]

Omg that pink body suit.. And the other one in the big girl...I think I've seen enough

[ice grillin you]

does anyone miss anything more than espn misses trey wingo

[PhillyPhreak54]

Yeah I'm on NFLN bc I can't take Greeny

[PhillyPhreak54]

LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoah
S Trevon Moehrig
CB Asante Samuel Jr.
OT Teven Jenkins
C/OG Quinn Meinerz
C Landon Dickerson (health issues)
RB Javonte Williams
WR Elijah Moore
WR Terrance Marshall Jr.
DT Christian Barmore
CB Tyson Campbell
CB Ifeatu Melifonwu
S Richie Grant
CB Paulson Adebo
DE Azeez Ojulari

Names to look out for in round 2/3

[ice grillin you]

most of those guys aren't making it to three

they will never take him cause of position but I would friggin love Elijah Moore

[ice grillin you]

The Philadelphia Eagles traded up two spots Thursday night to select Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith 10th overall in the 2021 NFL Draft. Zach Berman, Sheil Kapadia and Bo Wulf grade the move.

Berman: If you told me on Jan. 4 that the Eagles would pick DeVonta Smith in the first round, I would have said that's a solid outcome for the team. To land Smith while also adding a 2022 first-round pick makes this even better for Howie Roseman. The net sum of their maneuvering was sending the No. 6 pick, the No. 84 pick (a third-rounder acquired in the Carson Wentz trade) and the 156th pick (fifth round) for the No. 10 pick, the No. 123 pick (fourth round) and Miami's first-rounder next season. That's a good deal, especially if the Eagles come away with Smith.

My reservation with what the Eagles did on Thursday had nothing to do with Smith. (More on that below.)

There's little to quibble with about Smith's play. His production is prolific — he won the Heisman Trophy and finished with 117 catches for 1,856 yards and 23 touchdowns, and he made the game-winning catch in the national championship game as a freshman. He was consistent and clutch. He's polished, he's smooth and he's tough. The biggest knock on him is that he's extraordinarily slight at 166 pounds, making him an outlier. There's little historical success for players that size becoming elite NFL receivers, and those concerns cannot necessarily be dismissed. But it hasn't stopped him in the SEC against the best cornerbacks in the country.

"I saw a guy with length, I saw a guy with toughness," said Andy Weidl, the Eagles' vice president of player personnel, on Thursday night. "You catch 117 passes in the SEC, you're doing something right. You set the SEC record for career touchdown receptions, you're doing something right. But even more so, whenever his team needed him, he stepped up. The moment was never too big for him."

"He sure as heck doesn't play like a guy ... with that size," head coach Nick Sirianni said. "I see a ton of play strength and toughness ... over and over again."

You don't want a team full of exceptions, but if you're going to take an exception, make sure he's exceptional. That's what Smith has been. My guess is the baseline for Smith is a solid NFL receiver, and the upside is an elite, top-of-the-league player. I'll take his resume and profile any day.

So now let's look at the decision. This is the fourth consecutive year the Eagles have taken a pass catcher in the first two rounds and the second consecutive year they used their first-round pick on a wide receiver. That's not ideal, although they couldn't go into this pick worried about their current depth chart or previous draft investments. The question needed to be how could they acquire an elite player, and Smith was one of the best players available in this draft. 

My biggest criticism of the decision has nothing to do with Smith and more to do with the quarterback evaluation. They were in a position to draft Justin Fields. The Eagles signaled that they weren't going to be in the quarterback market when they traded down from No. 6 to No. 12, although Roseman admitted that when they made the trade, they thought more quarterbacks would go in the top 10. I would rather have Fields than Jalen Hurts at quarterback to begin the post-Carson Wentz era. My guess is they weren't yet ready to tie the franchise down to a first-round quarterback and they'll see what Hurts can do, which is a fine strategy if they think Hurts has a decent chance of being the answer at the position. Plus, it's not just Hurts versus Fields; it's Hurts and Smith versus Fields (and perhaps a resource if they turned around and traded Hurts).

I don't think the Eagles will look back at this draft and wonder how they took Smith over Micah Parsons or Kwity Paye or even another receiver like Kadarius Toney or Rashod Bateman. Smith was a sensible pick where they took him. I don't even think the Eagles will look back and wish they stayed at No. 6 and had a chance at Patrick Surtain II or Jaycee Horn — the value of the 2022 first-round pick made that trade worth it, especially with Kyle Pitts and Ja'Marr Chase off the board. But if Fields becomes an elite quarterback and the Eagles are trying to replace Hurts next season, then passing on Fields is a decision they might live to regret.

Again, though, that doesn't say anything about Smith. The Eagles came away with the best player in college football last season who married exceptional value with a major need, and they did it with shrewd maneuvering. That's worthy of praise. The Eagles should feel much better about who's catching balls for them this season and their resources beyond this season. How they should feel about who's throwing the passes is a different question.

Grade: A-

Kapadia: This was the "don't overthink it" draft for the Eagles. Going in, I thought they should sit tight at 12 and take whoever was left out of Jaylen Waddle, Patrick Surtain II and Devonta Smith. However, quarterbacks started to fall, and with the Cowboys on the clock, only Smith remained out of those three.

I have made my feelings pretty clear on Smith. He can get open. He catches everything. And he dazzles with his sideline acrobatics. I love his competitiveness and toughness.

Is it concerning that he's only 166 pounds? Of course. But I thought Smith showed a knack for avoiding big hits and knowing when to get down. He has plenty of experience he can lean on for how to be the little guy and still dominate. The guy had 3,965 yards and 46 touchdowns in the SEC. He also had no durability issues (54 games in four seasons).

Before the draft, I was against the Eagles moving up. You always want to get as many swings as possible. But I think it was a fine decision to move up a couple of spots in exchange for the 84th overall pick. In terms of the "juice" factor, you can't really beat Smith.

Grade: B

Wulf: All things considered, this was a good night for the Eagles. Entering the draft, we thought the Eagles were hoping they could sit at No. 12 and draft one of Patrick Surtain Jr., Jaycee Horn, Jaylen Waddle or DeVonta Smith. The way things unfolded, with both Justin Fields and Mac Jones falling out of the top 10, that calculus was changed. (In fact, Howie Roseman acknowledged Thursday night the Eagles expected more quarterbacks to be drafted early when they initially made the trade to move down from No. 6 to No. 12.) Rather than risk losing out on Smith, the last player remaining of those four targets, Roseman sent the second of the team's two third-round picks (No. 37 overall) to the Dallas Cowboys in order to move up two spots to select Smith before the Giants had an opportunity to draft him at No. 11. The Giants subsequently trading down to No. 20 and later selecting wide receiver Kadarius Toney all but confirmed Roseman had the right read on the Giants' intentions.

"We had a plan that we talked about and we had a list of guys that were really targeting in this draft," Roseman said, "and with the amount of picks that we had, the flexibility we had because of the picks, we felt like it was important to get one of those guys. And that's why we made the trade to go up again."

Generally speaking, I'm not in favor of surrendering a third-round pick to move up two spots. We talk all the time about teams overestimating their ability to differentiate prospects from one another. But in this case, I think it was a good call. The real risk was losing out on all four of those targeted players. The Eagles are in a roster-building stage in which, more than anything, they simply need good players. The prospect of trading out from No. 6, even with the 2022 first-round pick acquired, and ending up with a relative leftover at No. 12, or having to trade back, would have been uninspiring. It wouldn't be a surprise to see the Eagles trade back at some point on Day 2 to recoup some lost draft capital.

As for Smith, I was worried the Eagles might overthink things. He is not a perfect prospect. The concerns over his size are legitimate — there is not much of a track record of players under 170 pounds making an impact at the next level. And his prospect profile, as a senior receiver from an SEC school, is not historically great either. But there also isn't much precedent for a player having over 1,800 yards receiving and 23 touchdowns in the SEC. That Smith topped 1,000 yards during his junior season (and out-targeted Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs III in the process) assuages those concerns a bit. We have knocked the Eagles in the past for straying from consensus, like when they selected Jalen Reagor over Justin Jefferson last season, so we should acknowledge them sticking to it this time around. It's probably also true that they wouldn't have made this pick if Reagor had been a stud during his rookie season, but good for them for taking that medicine.

Smith seems like the kind of player who should have buy-in from all sides of the organization. Scouts will love a player of his production and status as a two-time captain at Alabama who is spoken of glowingly by those inside the program. The Eagles also have knowledge of Smith from Jalen Hurts and assistant special-teams coordinator Joe Pannunzio, who was with the Alabama program when Smith first arrived in Tuscaloosa. Nick Sirianni, meanwhile, was even more excitable than usual Thursday night when asked about Smith.

"What I saw in DeVonta was just a guy who could consistently win one-on-one," he said. "It's a little different how he does it. He does it with speed, he does it with quickness, he does it at the top of the route, he does it at the beginning of the route off the line of scrimmage. I consistently saw him win one-on-one versus some of those top corners in the SEC. And when you have a guy like that in your offense who can do that, it makes everyone around him better."

Short-term fit shouldn't really matter from a team-building perspective, but Smith steps in and immediately makes the offense more interesting. It's also easy to theorize he'll take some pressure off Reagor, who may now spend more time in the slot. Big picture, Roseman and the Eagles may have hoped to add someone on the line of scrimmage with a pick this high, but they rightly eschewed that in order to stick to the board.

"It is definitely not shifting our focus or our philosophy," Roseman said. "Again, we stuck to our board on this. This is a guy whose grade stuck out. This was one of the top players in the draft for the Eagles. We thought (he) was a great player and we didn't want to bypass that to fill a need."

We'll see if they can stick to that script over the course of the rest of draft weekend.

Grade: A-

[ice grillin you]

schefter just said that the bears first called the eagles and offered that package to move up for fields at 10

would you have done this?

give:
move from 10 to 20 last night
3rd rounder tonight
5th rounder tomorrow

get:
20th pick last night
5th rounder tomorrow
1st rounder next year
4th rounder next year

[General_Failure]

I suppose it depends on how much you like next year's draft class. If you're not super high on it, no deal. They've already got two firsts next year, maybe a third. A fourth would be great if you like the class, Howie's bound to get one of them right.

[MDS]

i think you gotta take the 1

fields might be terrible...the bears are a pretty wretched franchise with a bad coach....there is a decent chance thats a top 10 pick next year. that's 4 1's that all could be in the top 20.

[ice grillin you]

i think the tough part of doing it would have been the 3rd you gave up to move to 10 to begin with

[MDS]

oh wait id assume this was for 12

has anyone ever traded for a pick then immediately traded the pick again