Eagles Draft Preview: Andy Reid’s Complete Draft History

With the biggest draft in recent Eagles memory coming up, I figured I should do a couple posts on it. For this first one, I wanted to look back and really see how the Eagles’ drafts have looked since Andy Reid took over. Below you will find a chart of the 91 players the Eagles have drafted under Reid. They are sorted by round and then by impact. Each color represents a different level of impact on the team. There is obviously some of my personal opinion in here (like Sheldon Brown being rated over Lito Sheppard despite Sheppard making a couple pro-bowls, or me projecting Celek out at a future pro-bowler), so try not to get too upset if you don’t agree with the placement! If the player is in italics, it means they made their impact on another team. Let’s take a look…

Eagles Drafts By Round and Performance

Some observations…

• The Eagles seem to value 2nd and 4th round picks, as you can see they have a lot more of them after trading out of the 1st and 3rd rounds several times.
• The 6th and 7th rounds have not yielded a single decent player for the Eagles. Brock found his success with the Colts. I don’t think this is uncommon, but you’d think we’d have at least one diamond in the rough.
• 2/3 of the players drafted in the first 2 rounds have become starters for the team.
• When we do select in the 1st round, we have pretty good success, with only 2 busts and 7 above-average starters. Aside from McNabb though, Reid has yet to draft a star in the first.
• If you asign point values to each pick (5 for a star, 4 for an above average starter, etc…) you come out with these averages: 1st round (3.7), 2nd round (2.9), 3rd round (2.4), 4th round (2.2), 5th round (2.1), 6th round (1.3), 7th round (1.4). After the first 2 rounds, the 3rd-5th rounds have pretty much the same value, and 6th and 7th rounds are pretty much throwaways.

How Likely To Succeed, Based On Round

This next chart takes the above chart and puts a % on the likely success of this year’s picks based on Reid’s entire draft history. For instance, there is a 78% chance (7 of 9) that our 1st round pick will be at least an above-average starter.

Some observations

• There is just as good a chance our 2nd, 3rd or 5th round pick will be a star as there is our 1st rounder
• However, there is about an 80% chance our 1st round pick will be an above-average contributor
• After the 2nd round, there is less than a 50% chance the player selected will ever be an average starter or better
• After the 4th round, there is less than a 50% chance the player selected will ever see the field
• The 2nd-4th rounds have about the same % of likelihood of the draft pick being an above-average starter

By Position

Now let’s take a quick look at what position was drafted the most, and what round average they went in.

Some observations…

• Well, we certainly tried to get McNabb WR’s, didn’t we? Highest number of picks, and tied for the highest average round.
• 20 OL picked, 14 with the ability to play Guard. If you are an OL who can play multiple positions, there is a better chance of getting drafted high by Reid.
• Lots of linebackers as well, not a whole lot of success.
• Not as many corners as I would have thought considering how much of premium we place on that position.
• Aside from positions like QB and FB where you aren’t drafting them that often, the Eagles are actually pretty even with who they draft.

Efficiency by Position

Here’s the interesting part. This looks at how well the Eagles draft at each position under Reid. Essentially I’m going to look at how each position performed (using the 1-5 scale I used earlier) based on the average performance from the round they were drafted (3.7 for 1st, 2.9 for 2nd, etc…) to see which position performed above or below average. Hopefully that made sense.

I hope you like observations…

• Not surprising to see QB and RB at the top given that Andy Hall was the only bad QB picked by Reid, and the we’ve drafted a bunch of successful RB (Westbrook, Buckhalter, McCoy.
• Also not surprising to see WR, LB and S near the bottom.
• The DE spot is helped greatly by Trent Cole and Raheem Brock, both late round picks that turned out to be above average starters.
• Sheldon Brown and Lito Sheppard are the only CB drafted by Reid to see the field, that surprised me.
• Reid drafts a lot of OL, but does very well with the OG and OT position.

So what does this mean for this draft?

• For the 5 picks we have in the first 3 rounds: 3 of them will probably end up as starters, with 2 of them being above average starters. 1 will be a bust and 1 will be a rotation player. At least that’s what the expectation should be.
• I wouldn’t expect much from whatever LB or S we pick, because Stewart Bradley and Michael Lewis were really the only 2 players (out of 19) that were any good that Reid has picked at those positions.
• If we draft an OL in the first 3 rounds, they will probably be able to play multiple positions.
• Of the 4 big positions of need on the defense (LB, DE, S, CB), CB seems the most likely to be picked in the first round.

I found this exercise interesting for myself, hopefully you did as well. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts on this data and what it means for next week’s draft.

Also – if anyone wants to volunteer to do a draft preview for LB, DE, S or CB’s – shoot us an e-mail at reclinergm@gmail.com.