The Linc – ESPN says the Eagles got two of the top steals in the 2024 NFL Draft

May 1, 2024 10:10 am

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links …

2024 NFL draft: Best picks, top steals in every round – ESPN+
Quinyon Mitchell, CB, Philadelphia Eagles (No. 22). Mitchell had a dominant college career at Toledo that included 39 pass breakups over his last two seasons, and he followed it up with stellar showings at the Senior Bowl and combine. He was on the short list of the cleanest prospects in the class, and he filled Philadelphia’s biggest need. Darius Slay and James Bradberry are both over 30 years old, and GM Howie Roseman was able to land my CB1 way down at No. 22 without trading up. […] Cooper DeJean, CB, Philadelphia Eagles (No. 40). I’m enough of a fan of DeJean that if he had gone No. 22 overall to the Eagles, he would have made my list of favorite first-round picks. But at No. 40? Steal. The Eagles’ need for speed this offseason has now been met with the additions of Mitchell and DeJean, the latter of whom offers positional versatility to boot. DeJean is a springy, confident man-to-man coverage player with elite ball skills — he picked off seven passes in college.

5 NFL teams who got better in 2024 Draft, and 4 who didn’t do enough – SB Nation
Philadelphia Eagles. When you don’t have a lot of needs it can be tricky to really improve your roster, but my goodness did the Eagles deliver. This is all because of their top two picks in Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean. Going one-two on cornerbacks was a necessary move, and yet both picks ended up being steals at their relative picks in the draft. Philadelphia had one of the worst pass defenses in the league in 2023, and while it might take a year or two to get Mitchell and DeJean up to speed, the Eagles found two legitimate starters who can bolster their defense for the next five years. When you take into account these two picks paired with their phenomenal drafting in recent years it’s laying the table for this team to be a dominant force in the NFC for a long time to come.

2024 NFL Draft: 10 favorite team draft classes – PFF
What’s most remarkable about Howie Roseman’s streak of fleecing the rest of the NFL in the draft is how he seems to do it by just sitting quietly and letting the draft come to him. Quinyon Mitchell was the No. 1 cornerback on many people’s boards and the No. 12 overall player in the draft on the consensus board. The Eagles were able to secure him, at a position they desperately need to get younger at, at No. 22 overall. Mitchell is also a good fit for Vic Fangio’s scheme, given his experience with zone coverage. He didn’t allow a touchdown last season and had back-to-back years of 91.5-plus PFF grades. Cooper DeJean was the No. 8 player on PFF’s big board, and even if you question whether he can play outside cornerback and is more of a projection to safety or the nickel, landing at No. 40 overall makes him a good value. Jalyx Hunt is an elite-level NFL athlete who played at a comically low level in college, representing a really interesting developmental edge rusher. Will Shipley is a complete running back who should serve as a very nice backup to Saquon Barkley, and Day 3 was littered with great value picks, including linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and wide receiver Johnny Wilson.

The Eagles’ remaining holes to fill, post-draft, and who can fill them – PhillyVoice
The Eagles currently have six safeties on their roster. Only three are roster locks. They are Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, Reed Blankenship, and Sydney Brown. Brown is still recovering from an ACL tear suffered in January, so he may not be ready for the start of the regular season, meaning that they really only have two safeties. And then there’s rookie second-round pick Cooper DeJean, who has the versatility to play safety, but it’s probably more likely that the Eagles will let him focus on corner initially, since that’s the much more important position. My conclusion: They’ll probably add another safety. There are a lot of old safeties with recognizable names available on the open market, like Justin Simmons, Eddie Jackson, Quandre Diggs, Micah Hyde, Marcus Maye, Jayron Kearse, etc. Safeties are heavy on supply and seemingly light on demand, so the Eagles should be able to bring in one of those guys on a team-friendly deal.

NFL draft grades, NFC East: Eagles find spectacular value (again), while Cowboys confound – NFL.com
Oh, look: It’s more breathless acclaim for Howie Roseman. We do this every draft, don’t we? I know it’s on Around The NFL Podcast maestro Dan Hanzus’ cryptic radar. The general manager is held in such high regard these days that he’s largely become a mononym: Madonna, Prince, Beyoncé … Howie. What a world. Promise I didn’t set out to pander, but HOWIE gave me no choice. Allow me to explain … Roster-wise last season, what was the Eagles’ biggest problem area? A horrendous secondary. Well, after bringing back C.J. Gardner-Johnson in free agency, HOWIE (OK, I’ll stop) doubled down on DB with his first two picks. I can’t tell you what surprised me more: Quinyon Mitchell still being available at No. 22 or Cooper DeJean still being available at No. 40. Philadelphia happily scooped up both. While Mitchell figures to significantly upgrade the Eagles’ traditional CB corps on the outside, DeJean looks like the kind of do-everything cover man new DC Vic Fangio cherishes in his variable scheme. The 2023 Eagles ranked 31st in passing yards allowed (252.7 ypg) and opponent touchdown-to-interception ratio (35:9). The 2024 Eagles won’t be nearly as quarterback-friendly. (Take note, fellow fantasy nerds.) Beyond addressing the pass funnel in the back end of the defense, Roseman and Co. added needed depth elsewhere in a variety of manners, from the fun (hyper-athletic safety-turned-developmental-edge Jalyx Hunt) to the funky (towering wideout Johnny Wilson) to the familial (linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr., Son of Axe Man). They added some extra spice to the Saquon Barkley-led backfield with a versatile playmaker in Will Shipley. And don’t be surprised if late-fifth-rounder Trevor Keegan winds up a steal, given the guard’s 37 starts over the last three seasons as a key cog on Michigan’s dominant offensive line.

10 leftover odds and ends from Eagles 2024 NFL draft – NBCSP
Of course, Hunt is just a reach based on the consensus formed in the pre-draft process. According to Arif Hasan’s consensus big board (it’s a very cool tool, by the way), Hunt ranked as the 140th overall player in this class but ranked 126th among the “forecasters” group, which Hasan explains as a group that includes folks who might have more inside team information. That seems to check out. But regardless of what consensus board you look at, the Eagles drafted Hunt before many expected him to go. Roseman admitted it’s not easy to figure out where to take a player like Hunt. “Yeah, it is,” Roseman said. “I think this is one of the guys that you started to hear a lot of the buzz on him. We do all these mock drafts and you start seeing his name in the second round and third round. I think it starts out with a guy, you kind of are going, all right, maybe I can get this guy on the third day, and then you start seeing a bunch of mock drafts with his name in it in the second and third round and then you start seeing (NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah) DJ’s list and stuff like that, and so then you realize there are no more secrets. I think for us, obviously we took some chances because we were picking at 78. We moved back. I think we went to 86, we moved back, and then I think right in between those picks I think that’s when DJ’s big board came on the screen, and it was best available and he was like the third guy. I wanted to text him and tell him to delete that. I don’t think he would listen to me at this point. For us then it was just like we didn’t want to get cute, we want to develop the player. I think one of our scouts, after we picked him, said, man, where can this guy be in two years? What kind of pass rusher? We believe he has an ability to be one of these small-school rushers that really can ascend, and we feel like we have the right coaches and the right support system.”

Spadaro: A.J. Brown explains the secret to his success – PE.com
This has played out as A.J. Brown hoped it would when the news first broke in 2022 that the Eagles had traded with Tennessee to acquire Brown, a young and ascending wide receiver who somehow had fallen out of the Titans’ long-range plans. The Eagles thought otherwise and went out and brought Brown to Philadelphia to play with another young riser at the position, DeVonta Smith, and a quarterback in Jalen Hurts who happened to be best of friends with Brown. On Tuesday afternoon, with Hurts sitting in the audience at the NovaCare Complex celebrating the moment, Brown talked about why his career has “taken off” in the two All-Pro and Pro Bowl seasons he’s been here. “Support system. I think it’s family. When you care about somebody that you love and you’re playing beside people that you love, you go to bat for them,” Brown said. “You play a little harder. That being Jalen, Smitty, other guys in the room, on the team. “That’s what it is. Just pushing each other to be great.”

Boston Scott is not returning to the Eagles – BGN
Boston Scott is not returning to the Philadelphia Eagles. The veteran free agent running back reportedly signed a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Rams on Tuesday evening. It’s a little sad to see him go. Scott, who recently turned 29, has been with the Eagles since they signed him away from the New Orleans Saints’ practice squad during the 2019 season. He unexpectedly made some nice contributions to their playoff push during that year. He became a nice role player to have in the running back rotation.

Rams add a veteran to their crowded running back room – Turf Show Times
It will remain to be seen what this could mean for Zach Evans and Ronnie Rivers, who were already battling for the third back position, and will now have a proven veteran talent added to the competition. On paper, this looks to be a strong running back group, and behind this newly upgraded offensive line, the run game could prove to be the team’s biggest strength heading into the 2024 season.

No drafted quarterbacks for Dallas Cowboys means all currently still sit in contract year for season – Blogging The Boys
The draft offered at least a tangible option of securing an answer for the future in the here and now. Not doing so doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the Cowboys will not move on from Prescott, Rush or Lance in 2025, but without anything in the building the team runs the risk of completely starting over at the game’s most important position. As the draft was winding down and the Cowboys were getting close to making their final selection it stood to reason to consider a lottery ticket like Tulane’s Michael Pratt. Drafting Pratt (or anyone for that matter) would have given Dallas the chance to get a look at him in their building and with their staff and provided at least one player at the position if there is a mass exodus next spring. Instead the Cowboys chose to take Auburn defensive tackle Justin Rogers with their final selection although interestingly Pratt went the very next pick to the Green Bay Packers. Would the security, however minimal it may have been, of having Pratt in tow make anyone feel better about the future of quarterback? If so would it have been more worth it than the Rogers pick? Clearly the Cowboys did not feel that way.

Giants 2024 schedule tied for the sixth-hardest in the NFL – Big Blue View
The New York Giants will play the sixth-toughest schedule for the 2024 season, tied with the Buffalo Bills, after playing the fourth-highest-strength schedule in 2023. Their opponents’ win percentage last season was 0.516%. The Giants’ 2024 opponents will feature games against five playoff teams: Dallas, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Tampa Bay. They will play against the Minnesota Vikings at home and the Seattle Seahawks on the road. Both teams finished in the same place in their respective divisions. As for the 2024 season, the NFC East will face off against the NFC South and AFC North divisions.

Did Washington just draft three first round talents? – Hogs Haven
There’s no need to make an argument that Daniels, the number two overall pick, is a first round talent. I don’t think there was one credible draft observer who wouldn’t acknowledge his status as such. The question with Daniels really is: Might he have been the best player in the draft? Some respected commentators tried to make that case in the lead up to the draft, and at least one draft observer (see below) hinted that the depth of support in NFL front offices for Daniels as QB1 was probably more extensive than the public imagined.