NFL draft 2021: Eagles GM Howie Roseman’s popularity was short-lived

[time2rock]

NFL draft 2021: Eagles GM Howie Roseman’s popularity was short-lived

Roseman was a hero with Eagles fans after drafting wide receiver DeVonta Smith in the first round. Not so much in Friday's second and third rounds.

Howie Roseman took a lot of heat for his Day 2 decisions in the draft.Philadelphia Eagles

by Paul Domowitch

Published 

May 1, 2021

Well, it didn’t take long for Howie Roseman to go from Draft Day genius back to village idiot.

Even his harshest critics were applauding him on Thursday night after the Eagles GM snookered the New York Giants and traded up in front of them to steal Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith.

But then came Friday night.

First, Roseman, who just last year said "hope is not a strategy” when asked about taking any more chances on players with considerable injury histories, drafted a guy in the second round – Alabama center/guard Landon Dickerson -- who has had two ACL tears and two season-ending ankle injuries in the last five years.

Few NFL scouts question Dickerson’s ability. Take away the injuries, including the second ACL tear he still is rehabbing from, and the 6-5, 333-pounder probably would’ve been a mid-first-round pick.

Take away the injuries and this guy is a perfect eventual replacement option for either 33-year-old four-time Pro Bowl center Jason Kelce or 31-year-old three-time Pro Bowl right guard Brandon Brooks.

But you can’t take away the injuries. This is as much a risk as Sidney Jones was four years ago. You’re supposed to learn from your mistakes, not repeat them.

Alabama's Landon Dickerson holds the trophy following the College Football Playoff national championship on Jan. 11Kevin C. Cox / MCT

 

One of the Eagles’ biggest needs going into this draft was cornerback. After getting Smith on Day 1, the expectation was they would add a corner on Day 2. But that didn’t happen.

One pick before the Eagles took Dickerson, the Miami Dolphins, who are a frequent trading partner of the Eagles, selected one of the draft’s top slot corners, Jevon Holland of Oregon.

After the Eagles took Dickerson, four corners or slot safeties – Richie Grant of Central Florida, Trevon Moehrig of TCU, Kelvin Joseph of Kentucky and Asante Samuel Jr. of Florida State -- went in the next 10 picks.

After Samuel was selected by the Los Angeles Chargers with the 47th pick, another corner/slot guy didn’t go until the New York Giants took Aaron Robinson of Central Florida in the third round with the 71st overall pick.

The Eagles initially had the pick right in front of the Giants, No. 70. But they ended up trading down three spots to 73 with the Carolina Panthers in exchange for yet another worthless sixth-round pick (they already had three of them, along with two seventh-round picks). Those sixth- and seventh-round picks are worth two cents on the dollar this season because of the much-smaller pool of draftable players. Many of players that would’ve been there in the sixth and seventh rounds decided to stay in school after the NCAA gave student-athletes an extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic.

It’s believed that several Eagles scouts and personnel people, including respected senior personnel adviser Tom Donahoe, liked the 5-11, 186-pound Robinson a lot. NFL Network draft analyst Ben Fennell had him rated as the third best slot corner in the draft behind Elijah Molden of Washington, who ended up going later in the third round to Tennessee, and Holland.

Whether the Eagles’ plan was to take Robinson at 73 is unclear. If it was, they never got the chance because the Giants took him at No. 71, one pick behind the Eagles’ original selection.

The Eagles ended up using their third-round pick on developmental defensive lineman Milton Williams of Louisiana Tech. which means just one of the first three draft picks on a team that finished 4-11-1 last season, is going to be starting this season.

After the Eagles selected Williams, ESPN’s cameras showed what was supposed to be one of those generic shots of the team’s draft room with everybody fist-bumping.

But this one wasn’t so generic. It included an awkward exchange between Roseman and Donahoe. When Roseman went to give Donahoe the obligatory fist bump, Donahoe didn’t appear to be happy and said something to Roseman.

There is other video that shows other Eagles coaches and scouts seemingly very happy with the selection of Williams. But when someone as respected in the business as Donahoe is unhappy, it’s a little more significant than if the Northeast area scout is unhappy.

I should point out that every team has draft room differences. The late Giants general manager George Young regularly had knock-down-drag-out draft room arguments with his coach Bill Parcells.

The problem here is there is a perception – more than a perception actually – that Roseman too often doesn’t listen to his scouting people.

So an incident like the one Friday night with Donahoe, which ordinarily would have been quickly forgotten about by viewers, now has Eagles fans that already had reservations about Roseman’s talent-evaluation skills doubling down.

After the Eagles lost out on Robinson, just one cornerback, Paulson Adebo of Stanford, went in the next 25 picks.

At the end of the third round, there finally was a cornerback run, with five of them going in the last seven picks, between 99 and 105.

The Eagles might’ve tried to trade up and get one of those corners. But they already had traded away their own fourth-round pick, No. 110, to the Cleveland Browns in a 2019 trade-deadline move for edge rusher Genard Avery. Their only fourth-round pick was the one they got from the Dolphins in their first-round trade-down, No. 123.

Avery has been a disappointment. He’s played just 159 defensive snaps in 19 games with the Eagles and has 1 ½ sacks. He is expected to be moved to linebacker and might not even make the roster.

Meanwhile, the Eagles headed into Saturday’s final day of the draft still looking for cornerback help after missing out on 13 of them in the first three rounds, along with four slot safeties.

They finally took one in Round 4, selecting Zech McPherson of Texas Tech at No. 123.

https://www.inquirer.com/eagles/draft-howie-roseman-cornerback-donahoe-20210501.html

[PoconoDon]

His teenage growth spurt was short lived too. Shame his tenure as GM won't be.

Maybe his small stature is why they so often select undersized players who try hard? Hmmmm.....I wonder.

[time2rock]

Meh, I'm sure there is dysfunction in other front offices too and if you saw video of all war rooms I'm sure there was disagreement over certain picks - I don't think either is exclusive to Philadelphia.  I do agree with the first point made in the article in that using a high pick (37) on a player with as significant an injury history as Dickerson has probably wasn't the smartest strategy.  Also agree that, if true that they wanted to take Robinson at 70 and Howie got cute and traded down 3 spots to pick up and extra 6th rd pick is just another example of Howie outsmarting himself.  But we don't know if they did indeed want Robinson so ... 

I did like the move to sell a 6th and 7th for a 2022 5th.  

I do wish we had grabbed a CB earlier.  

[Breeze 44]

Howie never learns... it's pathetic how bad his draft record is and he still has any say in player personel. He should be given a bean counter hat and a corner cubby and told to stay away from the scouts and player personel. The number of people who had to work under this clown that have up and left and gone on to run other teams drafts as well as become GM's wiith far better success then Howie is staggering. Lurie will die on the cross for this twit and so will we as fans. 

 

[Road to Victory]

3 hours ago, time2rock said:

Meh, I'm sure there is dysfunction in other front offices too and if you saw video of all war rooms I'm sure there was disagreement over certain picks - I don't think either is exclusive to Philadelphia.  I do agree with the first point made in the article in that using a high pick (37) on a player with as significant an injury history as Dickerson has probably wasn't the smartest strategy.  Also agree that, if true that they wanted to take Robinson at 70 and Howie got cute and traded down 3 spots to pick up and extra 6th rd pick is just another example of Howie outsmarting himself.  But we don't know if they did indeed want Robinson so ... 

I did like the move to sell a 6th and 7th for a 2022 5th.  

I do wish we had grabbed a CB earlier.  

I would’ve felt a lot better about the draft if they stayed at 70 and took Robinson. Instead, now in back to back years they took a developmental prospect in the 3rd Rd (Taylor last year). I don’t mind taking a developmental prospect but not until at least the 4th round or later. 

[Procus]

16 hours ago, Breeze 44 said:

Howie never learns... it's pathetic how bad his draft record is and he still has any say in player personel. He should be given a bean counter hat and a corner cubby and told to stay away from the scouts and player personel. The number of people who had to work under this clown that have up and left and gone on to run other teams drafts as well as become GM's wiith far better success then Howie is staggering. Lurie will die on the cross for this twit and so will we as fans.

He's far from being a clown.  Howie has certain important strengths - cap management (I know, the team is cap strapped this year - but this is the first time in something like 20 years that happened, and its an outlier) big picture trades, certain FA signings.  But the elephant in the room is his draft management.  From where I'm sitting, Howie needs to delegate his authority to have final say on draft picks and strategy.  It would only increase his standing in the organization.

[UK_EaglesFan89]

I mean this article continues to make the point about slot corners going off the board in the second and third round. Slot corner isn't a dire need for this team, outside corner is. 

As much as I don't like that we didn't add a corner until the fourth round I'm not going to lose my mind that we didn't add a slot corner. 

[ManchesterEagle]

4 hours ago, Procus said:

He's far from being a clown.  Howie has certain important strengths - cap management (I know, the team is cap strapped this year - but this is the first time in something like 20 years that happened, and its an outlier) big picture trades, certain FA signings.  But the elephant in the room is his draft management.  From where I'm sitting, Howie needs to delegate his authority to have final say on draft picks and strategy.  It would only increase his standing in the organization.

Exactly this. People close their eyes to his strengths. His drafting (and his ignoring of talent on the D) are major issues of concern, but he is really good at the wheeling and dealing and cap management.

[Breeze 44]

5 hours ago, Procus said:

He's far from being a clown.  Howie has certain important strengths - cap management (I know, the team is cap strapped this year - but this is the first time in something like 20 years that happened, and its an outlier) big picture trades, certain FA signings.  But the elephant in the room is his draft management.  From where I'm sitting, Howie needs to delegate his authority to have final say on draft picks and strategy.  It would only increase his standing in the organization.

I'm pretty sure what I said is he should only be handling the cap.. his drafting record is terrible. 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

2 hours ago, Breeze 44 said:

I'm pretty sure what I said is he should only be handling the cap.. his drafting record is terrible. 

And even then I'm not sure he needs to be kept around to do that... Is he actually that much better than other GMs with the cap? I think he's good at it but plenty of others are too.

[pallidrone]

6 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

I mean this article continues to make the point about slot corners going off the board in the second and third round. Slot corner isn't a dire need for this team, outside corner is. 

As much as I don't like that we didn't add a corner until the fourth round I'm not going to lose my mind that we didn't add a slot corner. 

I am pretty sure they were not looking at a slot corner like this article states. I think their target was Alim McNeil instead of Milton Williams, who the Lions took right before them. I dont think that they thought they would have drafted him since they drafted a DT in round 2 already.

[Procus]

2 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

And even then I'm not sure he needs to be kept around to do that... Is he actually that much better than other GMs with the cap? I think he's good at it but plenty of others are too.

He's not needed for cap management - Jake Rosenberg handles that fine.  At this stage, Howie really is just an extension of Lurie.  That's why he's here.

Howie is not as good as he was made out to be in the past nor is he as bad as he is made out to be now.

[UK_EaglesFan89]

1 hour ago, Procus said:

He's not needed for cap management - Jake Rosenberg handles that fine.  At this stage, Howie really is just an extension of Lurie.  That's why he's here.

Howie is not as good as he was made out to be in the past nor is he as bad as he is made out to be now.

And that's the thing! I don't see what he does exceptionally well that would warrant keeping him around!