The Eagles’ draft added quantity; the quality remains to be seen, with so many picks coming in later rounds

Howie Roseman’s excitement came through clearly; it was sharper than his image on the laptop screen Saturday evening, when the Eagles’ general manager evaluated his 2020 NFL draft haul on a video conference call with reporters.

The Eagles ended up adding 10 draftees, plus veteran wide receiver Marquise Goodwin, acquired in a Day 3 trade. It was the organization’s biggest group of drafted rookies since 2011. On the surface, it would seem that Roseman addressed just about all the key concerns arising from the disappointing 2019 season.

But just after the completion of that 9-7-plus-a-wild-card-round-loss season, it was Roseman who cautioned that you can’t fix everything in one offseason. It’s fair to wonder, really, if “it all came together [Saturday] to show the vision of what we want our football team to look like during the 2020 season,” as Roseman told reporters when the draft was done.

Right away, we have to grapple with the decision to spend the 53rd overall pick on Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts. Whatever you think about the need to have a talented backup behind Carson Wentz, however much you endorse the view that Wentz’s $128 million contract extension makes it smart to have a backup playing on a low-cost rookie deal, you have to acknowledge that the Eagles could have spent that pick on someone they envision as a long-term starter.

At cornerback (LSU’s Kristian Fulton went 61st to the Titans). At linebacker (Michigan’s Josh Uche went 60th, to the Pats, and Mississippi State’s Willie Gay went 63rd, to the Chiefs). At wide receiver (Florida’s Van Jefferson went 57th, to the Rams, and Baylor’s Denzel Mims went 59th to the Jets). At defensive end (Iowa’s A.J. Epenesa went 54th, right after Hurts, to Buffalo).

We won’t even try to list the players taken in the third round, before the Eagles’ pick of linebacker Davion Taylor at 103, players who might have boosted this roster more than Hurts.

First-round wide receiver Jalen Reagor (21st overall) and Hurts were the Eagles’ only selections in the first 100 picks. Seven of their 10 selections came on the final day of the draft, in rounds four through seven. The odds are against many of those players becoming long-term starters. (That 2011 draft, by the way, in which the Eagles reaped 11 players? It will go down as one of the worst in franchise history. Eight of those picks came in rounds four through seven.)

Over the decade spanning 2010-2019, the Eagles drafted 52 players in the fourth round or later. Of that group, four might reasonably be expected to start for them in 2020: Center Jason Kelce (sixth round, 2011), cornerback-safety Jalen Mills (seventh round, 2016), linebacker Nate Gerry (fifth round, 2017), and cornerback Avonte Maddox (fourth round, 2018).

So, spending your second-round pick on a backup/supplement to your $128 million quarterback, given the way the remainder of the picks fell, really lengthens the odds on your having added a lot of difference-making talent to various parts of the roster in this draft.

After you tiptoe around the Hurts debate, things look a lot better. Taylor is athletic, though he might not project as a true starter. Fourth-round safety K’Von Wallace is a hitter who has a lot of admirers in the draftnik community. Offensive linemen Jack Driscoll (fourth round) and Prince Tega Wanogho (sixth round), both from Auburn, seem to be the kind of athletic, motivated, high-ceiling project types that offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland loves.

Fifth-round wideout John Hightower, from Boise State, is both fast and quick, but might not be strong enough yet to handle NFL press coverage. Ditto sixth-round wideout Quez Watkins, from Southern Mississippi; Sunday on Twitter, NFL Network reporter Peter Schrager shared a note from the scouting combine. Schrager said he’d asked an NFC GM for a comparable player to Watkins. The GM said he liked Watkins, that he “reminds me of Todd Pinkston.”

Sixth-round linebacker Shaun Bradley, from Temple, definitely projects to a special teams-backup role.

We don’t know that these later-round guys won’t adequately plug the holes they were drafted to fill, it’s just, they are fighting the odds. We can definitely say the Eagles did not draft a cornerback, the position that has been their weakest over the past decade. Roseman, in his wrapup, twice mentioned his trade of third- and fifth-round picks for 29-year-old Darius Slay, which is worth noting, but even so, a lot of people thought the Eagles might take a corner high in the draft, to try to assure the presence of a long-term starter.

The Eagles did give decent guaranteed money ($90,000) to an undrafted corner, Grayland Arnold from Baylor, according to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle. Generally, that means a team at least expects the guy to make the practice squad. Four players on their list of 12 UDFA signees were designated as “DB.”

The Eagles also didn’t draft a running back to go with Miles Sanders and Boston Scott, but two runners were on the UDFA list: Cincinnati’s Michael Warren and Central Florida’s Adrian Killins. Wilson reported that Warren (5-foot-9, 226 pounds) got a $57,500 guarantee.

Drafts often are judged on what happens at the top, whether that’s really accurate or not. The 1999 Eagles draft is considered a good one, because the team got Donovan McNabb second overall. But take a look at the rest of that group some time; it isn’t a pretty list.

Reagor has star potential. A lot of people preferred LSU’s Justin Jefferson, who went to the Vikings with the next pick after Reagor. And of course, Roseman didn’t trade up ahead of Dallas at 17 to get a much more heralded wideout, Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb. Reagor’s arrival will be accompanied by much pressure, pressure that might have been less intense had that second-round pick been, say, Mims.

Certainly, Roseman achieved his goal of boosting team speed, assuming several of these guys can play football as well as run fast. But it might take even longer than usual to sort out how much he improved his team, given the coronavirus restrictions that will affect rookie learning (the virtual offseason program starts today, by the way), and the developmental nature of several of the draftees.

Maybe it becomes a good draft if Hurts ends up playing a lot at quarterback. But that doesn’t seem like something Roseman would want to root for.