Eagles’ Howie Roseman doesn’t care if you wish he’d drafted fewer linemen

When the sun went down on the Eagles and their 2021 draft Saturday, it wasn’t clear if the team had added any immediate starters, beyond Thursday’s first-rounder, 10th-overall wide receiver DeVonta Smith.

The 2021 season just isn’t the focus right now; several times this offseason, we’ve been reminded that general manager Howie Roseman is in the early days of rebuilding a team coming off a 4-11-1 season that fired its coach, then traded away its franchise quarterback, mostly for a potential first-round pick in next year’s draft.

So this year’s three-day draft was a start, not anything close to a finish. If the Eagles were a classic car being restored, Roseman would still be under the hood, and there might be a wheel and a fender missing.

Much of this draft’s work was done under the hood, or within the undercarriage -- not in the areas that might be flashier to the eye.

“I’m sure there are some people who are sick and tired of seeing the Philadelphia Eagles take linemen. But you know what? That’s how we won a championship, and that’s how we’re going to win another championship,” Roseman said Saturday evening, in his post-draft wrapup.

He said the team was true to its board. There were no televised disagreements in the draft room Saturday, but also no shots of senior personnel advisor Tom Donahoe, whose obvious displeasure with Roseman’s third-round process became an internet meme on Friday.

“We don’t start playing until September. There’s a lot of work to be done on this roster,” Roseman said. “That’s an everyday process, it doesn’t end today. It won’t end, really, until the trading deadline.

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Did Roseman make substantive progress in the three days of drafting that ultimately netted nine new names for fans to research? He got just the one wide receiver, a potentially dominant offensive lineman with a troubling injury history (Landon Dickerson), and a really well-regarded defensive tackle (Milton Williams), in the first three rounds, where history tells us most of the difference-makers are drafted. After that, there was just one corner (Zech McPhearson), a nifty running back (Kenneth Gainwell), a defensive tackle (Marlon Tuipulotu), an edge rusher (Tarron Jackson), a safety/linebacker (JaCoby Stevens), and a guy who could be an edge rusher or a linebacker (Patrick Johnson).

A number of experts said he did well; the Birds added five players who had made NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah’s Top 100, despite only having three picks in the actual top 100, following their first-day trade up to nab Smith. On the other hand, Pro Football Focus gave them a B-minus.

Many fans will note a gaping omission. Cornerback is a premium NFL position, and this team’s best corner is 30-year-old Darius Slay. There is no obvious starter opposite him. A lot of analysts thought that player would arrive, if not in the first round, surely in the second. Leading off Day 3 with McPhearson, who transferred from Penn State to Texas Tech because he wasn’t starting, was not an obvious home run.

Maybe a stopgap corner solution exists in the picked-over free-agent market, or through some sort of trade -- possibly involving tight end Zach Ertz, who seemed likely to be dealt during the draft, but was not. Roseman noted that he traded for corner Ronald Darby just before the 2017 season, and Darby started in the Super Bowl.

Roseman,praised Ertz as “a really good player and a really good person,” but added that he is “still in his prime” at 30, coming off a bad season. This means Roseman still wants more value than other teams are offering.

McPhearson was Jeremiah’s 85th-best player in his ranking of the top 100. At 5-foot-11, 191 pounds, Jeremiah feels McPhearson might be better suited to the slot than playing outside, which is the Eagles’ bigger problem.

All eight McPhearson siblings played college sports, and their parents were athletic, as well.

Roseman said the Eagles valued McPhearson so highly, they discussed trying to trade back up into the third round Friday to get him.

“He’s got the ability to play inside or out. [Player personnel vice president Andy Weidl] talks about his ability to take away the ball, and the ball skills he has ... certainly great football character, but he’s got a long road ahead of him as we hand him off to the coaches.”

With top corners Patrick Surtain and Jaycee Horn drafted in the top 10, Roseman said Saturday that “I don’t know that there was a conversation” about taking anyone but Smith in the first round, and he, Weidl and new coach Nick Sirianni valued Dickerson’s talent and character more than anyone they might have found at corner in the team’s next draft spot.

The Dickerson spot was widely forecast as a place where the Eagles might find a really good corner, but Roseman called Dickerson “a potential difference-maker as a player and a person,” someone who could provide leadership to a young offensive line group in the coming years, as older mainstays fade away.

This again emphasizes the long-range focus. Right now, the Eagles have five good offensive line starters, and tremendous leadership there from over-30 guys such as center Jason Kelce, right tackle Lane Johnson, and right guard Brandon Brooks. Roseman is prioritizing the day when that won’t be the case.

As usual, the Eagles didn’t prioritize the linebacker position, which many fans would say remains a glaring weakness.

It’s unclear if adding Smith and a new offensive scheme under Sirianni will be enough to strengthen an unimpressive wideout group.

No safeties or quarterbacks were drafted.

After McPhearson, with the 150th pick Saturday, the Eagles added Memphis’ Gainwell, a 5-8, 201-pound running back who has been productive as a receiver out of the backfield, catching 51 passes for 610 yards in 2019. He opted out of last season after losing four family members to COVID-19, including an uncle. He is a Mississippi native, and is Fletcher Cox’s cousin.

Gainwell said in a Zoom interview after the selection that he has long been an Eagles fan, dating back to when he followed Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick, before the Eagles drafted Cox in 2012.

Sirianni has a track record of using running backs heavily in the passing game, with Colts running back Nyheim Hines being the latest example during Sirianni’s time as Indy’s offensive coordinator the last three years. Gainwell could fill a similar role as a complementary receiving back behind Miles Sanders right away.

With the first of their sixth-round picks, the Eagles took Southern California defensive tackle Tuipulotu. This was said to be a shallow draft overall, most especially at defensive tackle, but many analysts had Tuipulotu (6-2, 307) going quite a bit sooner. There has been speculation about medical concerns, dating to his 2017 back surgery.

Two picks after Tuipulotu, the Eagles continued to take fliers on defensive linemen, drafting Coastal Carolina defensive end Jackson. He is a 6-2, 254-pound edge rusher who had 42 sacks in his four-year career, but there are questions about his success translating, with such a steep jump in quality of competition coming.

The Eagles’ first of two seventh-round picks was Stevens, an LSU safety the Eagles apparently project as a hybrid linebacker, at 6-1, 212 pounds. Ten picks later, they finished up with Tulane edge Johnson. The team announced Johnson (6-2, 240) as a linebacker, meaning he might be something of a hybrid.

This draft seemed to be a lot about character and leadership. Weidl said six of the nine selections were team captains. He said six of the nine also were at the Senior Bowl, where teams got their best chance to talk with and assess prospects, given that the scouting combine was canceled due to COVID concerns.

The Eagles traded a sixth (225) and a seventh (240) to Washington for a fifth-rounder in next year’s much deeper draft.