Breaking down the Eagles' drafts since 2001 you see why this team is where they're at today. First off, I chose to start with 2001, because anything before that is too far back to really count as "this" current team sans McNabb of course.
It's unfair to really grade their picks from 2007 so I'm sticking to the 2001 through 2006 seasons. Over these six seasons the team had a total of 49 picks. I won't count Winston Justice or Max Jean-Gilles since the jury is still out on them. They simply haven't played enough to get a read on them-to be fair. So, we'll count 47 of their picks over this span.
I broke down the players into five simple, self-explanatory categories: stud, good player, nice player, scrub, and bust.
Out of all of their picks in the six drafts they have drafted four studs: Westbrook, Andrews, Sheldon Brown, and Trent Cole.
There are four you can call good, solid players in Burgess, Lito, Patterson, and Bunkley.
And, then the nice players (total of 10) would be guys like Michael Lewis, Omar Gaither, Raheem Brock (who got released but played well with Indy), JR Reed, Buckhalter, Reggie Brown, Herremans, and GoCong. Avant is just ok, but I'll put him in the nice player category. And, A.J. Feeley falls in this category since he's been a nice back-up QB for this team despite the meltdown against Seattle. So, there's 10 in that category and 9 of them have had an impact with this team since Brock was cut right away.
That means 18 of their 49 picks (47 we'll count, excluding Justice and Gilles) have had any impact on this team. 29 have been busts or scrubs. They say if you're successful 50% of the time in the draft you're doing a good job. The Eagles have been successful 38% of the time if you count those 47 picks. Correct me I'm wrong, but that's well below average.
The two key drafts that have killed this team are in 2004 and 2005. Look at the slop they drafted. In '04 they hit a homerun with Andrews and JR Reed has been a nice player and contributing once again as a back-up, but look at the scrubs they drafted. How many of those players are even in the league anymore? Out of 8 picks, they got one starter out of that draft in Andrews.
And, in 2005 it wasn’t as ugly, but they squandered so many picks. They had a total of 11 picks and Mike Patterson, Reggie Brown, Trent Cole, and Todd Herremans are the only ones who've made positive or better contributions. And, really Reggie Brown is just a third receiver and took a step back this year. Don't give me Considine. He's a scrub. They had 20 picks in those two years and came up with just six players and J.R. Reed was almost out of the NFL for good after his meltdown in the Green Bay game. So, they were close to just having one player of value remain out of 8 picks from their 2004 draft!
Teams are built through the draft and the Eagles' brain(dead)trust of Heckert, et al. has left them with a lot of holes on defense and at skill positions on offense.
This team will point to their 2002 draft and pound it down our throats like propaganda. They hit two homeruns with Westbrook and Sheldon. And, Lito is a good player when he's on the field, but over the past three seasons he's been banged up more than a car in a monster truck rally.
Busts in the top 3 rounds have marred this franchise. It hasn't happened once or twice; it's a pattern. Look at the names below and ye shall see.
Where there's smoke there's fire. The Trenton Times' Mark Eckel reported last month that Tom Heckert has jettisoned the quality scouts since the 2002 draft and replaced them with his flunkies.
Looking at the '04 and '05 draft classes it looks painfully obvious that there are people involved with the draft process that have no business working in the NFL. They'd be hard-pressed to qualify as scouts for the Arena league.
The spin-doctors and propagandists will point to the Eagles' 2002 draft and if you bring up Matt McCoy or Jerome McDougale they'll give you Westbrook, Andrews, and Cole. Ok-they hit a few homeruns. Who doesn’t?
How about the schleps like Billy McMullen, Jamal Green, Matt Ware, Trey Darilek, Scott Young, Jeremy Bloom, Quinton Caver, Freddie Milons, Norman Lejune, Ryan Moats, Adrian Clarke, Scott Peters, Tyreo Harrison, and Dexter Wynn who've never made an impact? More often than not this team has made poor draft picks.
Face it, 29 of their 49 picks in this span have been busts or scrubs. And, it all adds up.
In sports the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and these parts have added up to a combined 21-24 record over the past 45 games.
2005 isn't an aberration; it was the beginning of the downfall. And, the draft is where it began.
I didn't even mention their lowrent free agent acquisitions.
You be the judge. The numbers don't lie.
2001 Draft
1-F. Mitchell-bust
2-Q. Caver-bust
3-D. Burgess-good player
4-C. Buckhalter-nice player
5-T. Stewart-scrub
5-A.J. Feeley-nice player
2002 Draft:
1-Lito-good player, now oft injured
2-M. Lewis-nice player
2-S. Brown-stud
3-B. Westbrook-stud
4-S. Peters-scrub
5-F. Milons-scrub
6-T. Harrison-scrub
7-R. Brock-good player, cut right away though
2003 Draft:
1-J. McDougale-bust
2-L.J. Smith-nice player, oft-injured, ultimately didn't live up to expectations
3-B. McMullen-bust
4-J. Green-scrub
6-J. Bridges-scrub
7-N. Lejune-scrub
2004 Draft:
1-S. Andrews-stud
3-M. Ware-bust
4-JR Reed-nice player, bad injury killed speed, but still servicable back-up
4-T. Darilek-scrub
5-T. Tapeh-scrub
6-A. Hall-scrub
6-D. Wynn-scrub
7-A. Clark-scrub
7-B. Perry-scrub
7-D. Furio-scrub
2005 Draft:
1-M. Patterson-good player
2-R. Brown-nice player
2-M. McCoy-bust
3-R. Moats-bust
4-S. Considine-scrub
4-T. Herremans-nice player
5-T. Cole-stud
5-S. Young-scrub
6-C. Armstrong-scrub
7-K. Marshall-scrub
7-D. Bergeron-scrub
2006 Draft:
1-B. Bunkley-good player
2-W. Justice-jury still out
3-C. GoCong-emerging-chance to be really good
4-M. Gilles-jury still out
4-J. Avant-ok player
5-J. Bloom-bust
5-O. Gaither-nice player-chance to be better
7-L. Ramsey-scrub
2007 Draft:
2-K. Kolb
2-V. Abiamiri
3-S. Bradley
3-T. Hunt
5-C.J. Gaddis
5-B. Celek
6-R. Barksdale
7-N. Iloa
Contact Dennis Bakay at dennisbakay@phillypurge.com
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