As they do every April, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni held their annual pre-draft press conference this week.
They answered every single question honestly about exactly what they’re going to do in the 2025 NFL Draft next week. No need to even watch the draft.
OK, not exactly.
While no GM or coach is going to divulge a draft plan, there’s still plenty to learn from this pre-draft press conference. For instance, Roseman broke down what they look for in edge rushers who don’t have great production in college. And both guys talked at length about the tight end position.
But here are some other leftovers from Tuesday’s session:
Honest about 32
Roseman talked honestly about having the last pick in the first round and said that they don’t have 32 players with first-round grades — that they never have 32 players with first-round grades.
But that doesn’t mean they won’t get a quality player, even at 32. Heck, last year they got cornerback Quinyon Mitchell at No. 22, which was not considered a likely outcome when they entered that draft. Things just fell the right way for the Eagles in 2024.
“Obviously, everyone’s looking at things differently,” Roseman said. “Everyone has a different vision for what they’re looking for their team. Everyone has a different vision for the particular players that they’re looking at and you just hope that that makes sense for your football team.”
The Eagles have had the No. 32 pick before. They were there back in 2018 coming off winning Super Bowl LII when they traded out of the first round so the Ravens could move up and draft Lamar Jackson. And then they had pick No. 30 (there was a vacated pick in the first round) coming off their Super Bowl LVII loss a couple years ago; they used that one on Nolan Smith.
What lessons did Roseman take from those years?
“I think that you have to be patient, one,” Roseman said. “You have to allow things to come to you. The chances that you’re trading up into the top 10, top 15, top 20 are slim. That’s hard to do. So you have to really kind of understand the strengths of the draft. You have to spend a lot of time being realistic about who you think you have an opportunity to get so you can spend a lot of time with them. I think that when we look back at those two drafts, when we were picking 32, and I think we were 30 that year because a pick was forfeited, they were two different examples because in that ‘18 draft, we didn’t have a lot of picks. We had given them up. So we had an opportunity at the end of the first round to move back.
“But I think we got very fortunate that the guys that we had a lot of passion for, especially on the third day, were available, and we were able to target them and go get them. And we were fortunate that we had a couple of first round picks when we came back in 2023, and we had good players at those positions too.
So it’s not my best quality, patience, but I think in this situation, understanding the reality of where we are in the draft, what’s going to be available to us potentially, and making sure we know those guys backwards and forwards.”
The Eagles enter this draft with eight total selection. They have one pick in each of the first four rounds and four picks in the fifth.
How Eagles deal with character concerns
When he was in Indianapolis for the combine this year, Roseman was a guest on Todd McShay’s podcast and a portion of that interview was clipped and has made the rounds. In that clip, Roseman talks about the organization’s policy against drafting a player who has committed violence against women.
On Tuesday, Roseman was asked about the standard by which the Eagles make those decisions about whether or not a player is right for them.
“We have a process, we have an objective process that we use,” Roseman explained. “We live in a country where you’re innocent until proven guilty, and so we try to abide by the judicial process. But I think to get into the details of what we do, that’s part of our internal dynamics that I probably wouldn’t want to get into.
“But certainly we try not to make it subjective, is basically what I would say, [so we don’t] get in a situation where we really like a player [and] make excuses for that player. So, we try to have objective criteria when it comes to the issues that you’re asking me about, but it is important to us, the people that we bring in this building and that we know we can win with really good people. We also know that young people make mistakes in other areas, but that was one that was on my heart when I was talking about it and something that we believe in as an organization.”
Benefit of learning from a legend
Last month, Eagles longtime right tackle Lane Johnson said he would welcome the opportunity to mentor his eventual replacement just like Jason Kelce did for Cam Jurgens, Fletcher Cox did for Jalen Carter and Brandon Graham did for Nolan Smith.
Sirianni on Tuesday detailed the tangible benefit of that type of relationship inside the NovaCare Complex.
“I think that one of the best tools that we have as coaches is the tape, right? Is the tape that we watch. A lot of us are visual learners,” Sirianni said. “We’re able to evaluate the tape and whether it’s in practice, whether it’s in the draft, whatever it is, and say, here’s what you did right? Here’s what you did wrong and it’s right there on the tape. That’s a tool that every coach uses. Well, the next step of that is being able to dive into what that player is thinking.
“So sometimes that, ‘Hey, what this player was thinking on this play was this, this is what we taught him on this play.’ But to have the guy in there, whether it’s Jason Kelce with Cam, or whether it’s Fletch with Jalen Carter or Jordan Davis, whether it’s BG with Nolan, to be able to watch that tape to show the standard of what something looks like and hey, ‘this is exactly the way we want this play to look like here, watch BG right here.’
“Now, to be able for Nolan to be able to go, or Jalyx (Hunt) to be able to go to BG and say, ‘Why did you do it that way? I saw what had happened, take me through that process.’ That is a huge, huge tool and advantage that we’ve been able to have here for the past, since I’ve been here because of the great players that we have. So again, it’s just such valuable information to be able to watch the tape boom, but then to have the guy that’s actually doing it on there, sitting right next to you in the meeting.”
Working with Patullo
After Kellen Moore left to take the Saints head coaching job, the Eagles promoted former passing game coordinator Kevin Patullo to offensive coordinator this offseason. Patullo has been Sirianni’s right-hand man during his first four years in Philly and now has a new job.
Because he has worked with Patullo so long, Sirianni said there’s a really strong base of communal knowledge as they evaluate players together. Sirianni compared it to the rapport Roseman and offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland have built over the last decade-plus.
“The longer you’ve been with somebody and the more you understand their point of view and their biases and their different things that they look at and how they evaluate guys,” Sirianni said.
Basically, you end up learning what a coach likes and doesn’t like in a prospect. Sirianni joked on Tuesday that Roseman “definitely” knows which players he’s not going to like during this process.
“So I think it’s an advantage when you’ve had that time with somebody, and I feel like our coaches did a really good job of evaluating guys and giving their side of the input to it,” Sirianni said. “And it’s just a piece of the puzzle. Like I said, I can’t say enough of how in awe I am of how the draft works and all the things that Howie uses and does to help bring good players in.”
