‘Tremendous tools’: Eagles draft edge rusher Jalyx Hunt out of Houston Christian in the third round

The Eagles made an upside play in the third round of the NFL draft Friday night, selecting Houston Christian edge rusher Jalyx Hunt with the 94th pick in the NFL draft.

After moving up 10 spots to take Iowa defensive back prospect Cooper DeJean early in the second round, the Eagles made two separate trades to move back in the third round before taking Hunt, a 6-foot-4, 252-pound pass rusher with limited experience at the position but ideal physical traits.

Hunt started his college career as a safety at Cornell, mostly seeing the field as a special-teams contributor before transferring to Houston Christian, also in the Football Championship Subdivision. The 23-year-old converted to the edge with the Huskies and started his last two seasons while recording 13.5 career sacks, 20.5 tackles for loss, five forced fumbles, and one interception.

» READ MORE: Eagles are getting a diamond in the rough with Houston Christian edge rusher Jalyx Hunt

Given his limited experience at the position, Hunt projects as a developmental pass rusher with ideal length and burst for the position with the Eagles. His 34⅜-inch arms are 80th percentile for his position and he ran a 4.64-second 40-yard dash at the NFL scouting combine while also posting a 95th-percentile broad jump at 128 inches.

“He’s got freaky tools in his body,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said Friday night. “He’s an explosive guy, if you watch his best plays, he’s doing things that are unique. He can bend, he can close, he can finish, he’s long. … We feel like we’ve got a good edge rush group. He doesn’t have to come in here and — we’re going to develop him like we talked about. This is a perfect developmental guy for us.

“These guys are hard to find. We believe in edge rushers and we just felt like there was tremendous buy-in from our staff obviously, from the coaching staff, from the front office, we felt like this guy had tremendous tools.”

Hunt was a Senior Bowl attendee and also took a top-30 visit to the Eagles earlier this month. NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah, a former Eagles scout who Roseman mentioned had Hunt highly ranked among the “best available” players ahead of the Eagles’ pick, said the edge rusher was one of new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s favorite prospects in the draft.

Fangio has often found effective roles for versatile edge rushers like Hunt who can drop into coverage at times while also presenting a threat as a pass rusher.

“When you’re developing a small-school guy, you want buy-in from the coordinator and the position coach,” Roseman said. “So Coach Fangio and [edge rusher coach Jeremiah Washburn] obviously had a chance — we brought him here. Me and Coach Wash worked him out. … I think it’s fair to say obviously there was some excitement about this player from all layers of the organization.”

The Eagles’ series of trades Friday netted them a handful of extra picks going into Day 3 of the draft. Their first trade to move up for DeJean cost them the 50th, 53rd, and 161st picks in exchange for No. 40, No. 78, and No. 152. They traded back eight spots with the Houston Texans for the 123rd pick (a fourth rounder) and added pick No. 132 by moving back another eight spots with the San Francisco 49ers from there.

» READ MORE: Eagles trade up to select DB Cooper DeJean in the NFL draft’s second round

The Eagles have now added three defensive players at the top of their 2024 draft class, with Hunt joining DeJean and first-round cornerback Quinyon Mitchell. Going into the third and final day of the draft, the team has seven remaining picks including three each in the fourth and fifth rounds.

Roseman said the effort to stockpile Day 3 picks by trading back in the third round was to make sure they can address lingering needs with volume in the final rounds.

“There are a couple more areas that we want to address here,” Roseman said. “I think that’s one of the reason we tried to accumulate picks at the end of the day today, to see if we can accumulate some of those players tomorrow.”