INDIANAPOLIS -- At some point at Lucas Oil Stadium this week, the Eagles will time the next Bryan Smith running the 40. Theyll watch the next Daniel Teo-Nesheim doing 225-pound bench-press reps. Theyll watch the next Matt McCoy in the three-cone drill.
And then theyll try like hell not to draft them.
We want to do a better job, Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman said. Were looking to get better. Were trying to do everything we possibly can to do, and I promise thats where our focus us.
The Eagles, like every other NFL team, flew their coaching and scouting staffs to Indy for the annual NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. More than 300 college prospects will run, jump, shuttle and lift for all 32 NFL teams, theyll undergo extensive physical exams, theyll sit down for numerous 15-minute interviews with coaches and personnel execs.
And then, in two months, based on game film, private workouts and to a great extent what they see at this weeks Combine, the Eagles will draft a new batch of football players.
Maybe theyll land a superstar defensive player. If they do, hell be the first in seven years.
In Andy Reids first five years as head coach, the Eagles drafted Sheldon Brown, Lito Sheppard, Michael Lewis and Corey Simon and signed undrafted free agent Quintin Mikell.
NFL
Five studs. Five home-grown Pro Bowl defenders in five years (Brown never played in a Pro Bowl, but he was picked to one).
Since then, two-time Pro Bowl defensive end Trent Cole, a perennial double-digit sack producer, is the only true defensive star the Eagles have drafted. Cole was a fifth-round pick in 2005.
The Eagles have certainly landed a few exceptional free agents on defense, but there are good reasons they prefer to build through the draft and not free agency.
Home-grown players are cheaper and younger. They have stronger ties to the franchise because they were raised here. They arrive without bad habits from other teams and dont have to unlearn schemes they learned elsewhere. You can make a compelling case that the Eagles 1-4 start last year was a direct result of building a team through free agency in a year without an off-season.
But the Eagles have been forced into the position where they have to stock up in free agency because their draft record on defense has been so uneven.
In all, the Eagles have drafted 31 consecutive defensive players who have yet to make a Pro Bowl, and theyve selected 15 consecutive defensive players in the first three rounds who havent made a Pro Bowl. Only two of those 15Mike Patterson and Nate Allenproject as starters in 2012.
Now, in the interest of fairness, most of the Eagles recent draft picksmost of Rosemans pickshavent really had a shot at the Pro Bowl. Some of the the franchises best defensive players of the past generation didnt make their first Pro Bowl until late in their careerWilliam Thomas in his fifth year, Seth Joyner and Clyde Simmons in their sixth year, Quintin Mikell in his seventh.
I do not think Pro Bowl is necessarily the most accurate representation of a successful player, Roseman said.
And the Eagles do have some promising young home-grown playersAllen, Jamar Chaney, Kurt Coleman, Brian Rolle and Keenan Clayton have all shown flashes and are 25 or younger.
But the fact remains: The Eagles have not drafted a stud defensive player since two months after they played in the Super Bowl. And some of their premium picks have not only failed to become stars, theyve barely registered a blip on an Eagles defense that could use some big-time playmakers.
In the nine years since they last drafted a Pro Bowl defensive player within the first three rounds, the Eagles have used premium picks on four players who never started a game for the Eagles (first-rounder Jerome McDougle and third-rounders Teo-Nesheim, Smith and Matt Ware) and three others whove started 10 or fewer games (second-round picks McCoy, Victor Abiamiri and Trevor Laws). All of them other than Teo-Nesheim predate Roseman, who replaced Tom Heckert before the 2010 draft.
On offense? The Eagles have drafted brilliantly. DeSean Jackson and LeSean McCoy are Pro Bowl picks and among the best in franchise history at their positions. Jason Kelce, Todd Herremans and Danny Watkins are outstanding offensive linemen. Brent Celek is one of the NFCs best tight ends. Jason Avant and Jeremy Maclin are terrific playmakers. Kevin Kolb had some huge games before losing his job to Michael Vick and then got the Eagles a second-round pick in this years draft.
If the Eagles had drafted as well on defense the past several years as they have on offense, theyd be a Super Bowl team.
But they havent. Theyre now seven years removed from the Super Bowl and three years removed from their last trip to the NFC Championship Game, which was their fifth in eight years.
Maybe its a coincidence that the Eagles have drifted out of the NFL elite at the same time their defensive Pro Bowl drought has reached its longest point. Maybe not.
But the Eagles uneven record drafting defensive players is something that Reid, Roseman and everybody in the teams personnel and coaching departments all are working hard to understand.
And correct.
We spend a lot of time studying what we do and trying to learn from the things that we did and hopefully get better, Roseman said during the Combine. Were aware of every pick we made. The right ones, the wrong ones, and were just trying to get better.
I think what we (learn) from is all the other draft picks in the league. We try to study them. And then our draft picks. We do spend a lot of time looking at it, trying to find common ground and guys who have been really successful and hopefully we put that to good use.
Roseman said the Eagles, in recent years, may have strayed too far from their usual philosophy of taking the best available player, regardless of position, and reached to fill needs.
Why is it important to simply take the best player on the board?
In 2002, the Eagles had two Pro Bowl cornerbacks on the roster in Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent, so we all thought Reid had lost his mind when he took corners in the first two roundsSheppard and Brown. Both wound up being Pro Bowl-caliber players on a Super Bowl team.
I think that sometimes you really want a position, even if youre saying that youre trying to take the best guy, I think its natural when youre looking for something in the off-season to push things up, Roseman said. When youre watching a guy, to find the good more than the bad, and weve got to be very careful about that.
Weve talked about drafting like we have an expansion team, like we have no players in place. Were going to be very committed to that process.
Roseman points out that judging any teams personnel record solely on the draft is unfair. There are plenty of other ways to build a team.
Certainly the Eagles helped themselves by signing CFL defensive end Phillip Hunt, by adding unrestricted free agents like Jason Babin and Cullen Jenkins, by acquiring Jason Peters and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie in trades, by snagging Colt Anderson off the Vikings practice squad, by adding undrafted rookies like Joselio Hanson and by claiming players such as Antonio Dixon off the waiver wire.
We talk about making sure we get players however we can to contribute to our team, Roseman said Though ideally youd like to have your first-round picks be your best playersif we have a talented football team thats playing well and theyre coming from the CFL or UFL or AFL, really, we dont care.
You talk about pridewe want our draft picks to be our best players. We want to be a homegrown team. But the name of the game is getting talent on our team, and thats what were going to try to do. So if it doesnt work out with Teo, but it works out with Phillip Hunt, would we rather have it gone with the third-round pick? No question about it. But we want to make sure that position is filled. And thats our job and thats what were going to try to do.
E-mail Reuben Frank at rfrank@comcastsportsnet.com