Eagles draft: Howie Roseman’s defensive back valuation and other takeaways from the predraft news conference

With the NFL draft fast approaching, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman and coach Nick Sirianni were predictably cagey during their annual predraft news conference on Tuesday.

They spoke to reporters for 30-plus minutes, remaining cautious to avoid revealing meaningful strategy ahead of the draft next week while discussing the Eagles’ offseason moves.

Here are four takeaways, reading between the lines of Roseman and Sirianni’s comments.

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Speaking for the first time since trading Haason Reddick to the New York Jets for a conditional 2026 third-round pick, Roseman said the decision to move the star edge rusher was a difficult one.

Reddick was the Eagles’ most productive pass rusher in each of the last two seasons, but he wanted a contract extension going into the final year of his three-year, $45 million deal. The Eagles opted to sign free-agent edge rusher Bryce Huff away from the Jets on a three-year deal worth up to $51 million and restructured the final year of Josh Sweat’s contract, making the 29-year-old Camden native the odd man out of the edge-rusher rotation.

“It’s bittersweet to lose a player and a person like that,” Roseman said. “As the offseason went along and we added Bryce, who we are incredibly excited about, brought back Josh, drafted Nolan Smith in the first round, [Brandon Graham] came back, we have some young guys at that position that we’re excited to develop. Through the conversations with the Jets, we felt like it was a win-win situation‚ but it’s always hard to get rid of players and people like Haason.”

Still, trading away one of the league’s most productive pass rushers isn’t befitting of a team in contention like the Eagles. The market for veteran defensive players like L’Jarius Sneed and Brian Burns was tepid before the Reddick deal, which helps explain the future draft capital the Eagles received. The pick could become a second-rounder if Reddick plays more than 67.5% of the Jets’ defensive snaps and records at least 10 sacks this season.

When asked what the upside of getting a future draft pick instead of bringing Reddick back on the last year of his contract, Roseman bristled at the question, suggesting further context was necessary.

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“I think you’re asking a question in a vacuum without all the other factors,” Roseman said. “If we want to talk about all the factors that go into building a team and the resources that we put into each position, we can do that, but I don’t think the question is really fair or accurately describes the transaction.”

Roseman’s track record of using premium draft picks to address long-term needs beckons an obvious question: Will the Eagles draft right tackle Lane Johnson’s eventual successor in the first round?

There are several examples in the last few seasons alone of the team setting up a succession plan for trench players. The Eagles drafted Cam Jurgens in 2022 as the heir apparent to Jason Kelce, took Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter to help soften the blow of Fletcher Cox’s eventual retirement, and drafted Andre Dillard in 2017 to sit behind Jason Peters, who was 35 at the time.

When asked about the rationale of potentially using a premium pick on a player who would sit behind Johnson, 34, Roseman and Sirianni cited past decisions to do so with Kelce and Cox.

“You have two options, right?” Roseman said. “You can tell people stories about work ethic and how guys played and how they led, or you can have them watch that. For us, when we drafted Cam, we were still always trying to recruit Jason to keep playing for as long as he felt comfortable playing, but at the same time, having him be able to study how Jason practices, how Jason leads, how Jason takes notes, instead of saying, ‘Man, Cam, you should have seen how Jason Kelce led, how he practiced, how he took notes.’ We think that gives him the best potential to reach the ability that he can do, and the same goes for Jordan and Jalen.

“There are benefits to that,” Roseman added. “In the short term, you can say, ‘Well, Cam sat for a year, maybe you could have gotten some bigger bang for your buck with that second-round pick in the short-term.’ When we think about the long term, and we’re trying to do things for this team that are best in the long-term, that it makes sense for these guys to be around these great players.”

Considering the sometimes divergent goals of a general manager tasked with considering the long-term outlook of a roster and a coach focused on winning with urgency, it’s easier for Roseman to see the benefits of taking a player who won’t start right away compared to Sirianni. Still, the coach had a similar sentiment when discussing the benefits of drafting a player like Jurgens, who was a backup in his rookie season before starting at right guard in 2023.

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“What an unbelievable opportunity that may not show itself right at the immediate future but it’s going to show itself later down the line,” Sirianni said. “And with Cam, he had versatility where he could play multiple spots and not only contribute to the team, but also learn from Jason. … You’re always thinking about winning the next game, but winning the game is not just with the players that are — the depth in the NFL is a real thing that has to be accounted for because it’s such a long season and so demanding on the guys’ bodies.”

The Eagles have a need at outside cornerback going into the draft, but Roseman’s history of using premium picks at the position is quite limited.

The team hasn’t used a first-round pick on a cornerback since 2002 and hasn’t taken one higher than the fourth round in the last six years. The Eagles took Sidney Jones and Rasul Douglas in the second and third rounds of the 2017 draft, but haven’t used a Day 2 pick on the position since.

Despite the lack of draft capital expended, Roseman said the team views the position as an important one.

“Obviously, corners are a huge part of playing defense in the National Football League right now,” Roseman said. “We always talk about affecting the passing game, just like on offense we talk about the offensive line and skill guys, we talk about the defensive line and having guys that can cover on the outside and the inside and how much that helps you.”

The Eagles have expended resources at the position the last few seasons. They traded a third- and fifth-round pick to the Detroit Lions for Darius Slay before the 2020 season and signed the veteran cornerback to an ensuing three-year contract extension. They also signed James Bradberry in 2021 after the New York Giants released him to clear salary-cap space late in the offseason and re-signed him to a lucrative deal the following offseason.

“We’ve found different ways, really going back to me being a personnel director, we’ve signed some Pro Bowl-caliber corners or traded for some Pro Bowl-caliber corners,” Roseman said. “We’ve probably done it a different way.”

This year’s draft has a deep class of cornerbacks, with five or six potentially going in the first round. The Eagles had some of the top prospects at the position — including Alabama cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry and Iowa defensive back Cooper DeJean — in for a top-30 visits during the predraft process.

» READ MORE: Eagles 2024 NFL draft prospect visit tracker

When asked about his extensive history of making trades on draft night, Roseman interjected with the obvious.

“I like the trades.”

Indeed, he does. The Eagles have made a move in the first round, either to go up or down the draft board, in four of the last five drafts. They traded up one spot for Carter in 2023, two spots for Davis the year before and moved up three spots for Dillard in 2019. They also traded up two spots for DeVonta Smith in 2021, although they originally traded down from No. 6 to No. 12 in the lead-up to the draft in exchange for a first-round pick the following year.

This year’s draft is expected to be offense-heavy with as many as four quarterbacks potentially going early, along with some highly touted wide receivers and offensive tackles. A run on offensive players could leave some of the top defensive prospects in the Eagles’ range to trade up, especially at cornerback or edge rusher.

Roseman said, regardless of the uniqueness of a specific draft, the team runs through trade scenarios with owner Jeffrey Lurie in the lead-up to the first round to account for best- and worst-case scenarios.

“I think you just have to be prepared,” Roseman said. “A lot of the scenarios are led by Jeffrey putting us to the test over the next couple weeks so when we’re on the clock, it’s just like coach going through his game plan. We’ll be ready for any scenario that comes.”