Adrian Fedkiw
Best player available!
Well, besides quarterback.
That’s the Joe Douglas philosophy for the upcoming NFL Draft and the Philadelphia Eagles are hoping that his expertise will help the franchise turn the corner when the festivities on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway commence next Thursday night.
Eagles vice president of football operations Howie Roseman and the vice president of player personnel Douglas spoke for the final time Thursday before the draft. Roseman explained why Douglas was hired last year.
Part of bringing him in here is trying to change what we’ve done and trying to get better. It started when we hired him and using a different grading scale and getting us all acclimated to the way he talks about players, the way he grades players.
Douglas, who stated the Eagles have 7-to-8 different first-round scenarios played out, believes this draft is very deep at cornerback and running back, which are two positions of great need for the Bird. He also mentioned offensive line and tight end as other positions of strength.
I really feel like running back is a deep draft, corner, tight end. I think even through the process, offensive line, there’s some good players across the board.
Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon is an extremely controversial figure in this draft class and while Roseman dodged the initial question of whether he is on the Eagles board, he did discuss that each player with a character concern has to be judged on an individual basis.
Each case you have to judge individually, you got to do your research, you got to go through the whole process … So we get all of the information and we make a decision like anything else.
Douglas delved into some of the traits he looks for in a football player.
We’re trying to find the things you can’t really measure; mind, spirit, soul and their will to win … We have a great group of scouts, great group of coaches. We’ve done so much work on these guys. It’s never going to be an exact science, but I think we fine-tuned it to a formula we’re looking for in a player.
An exact science it is definitely not.
You can watch the entire press conference below.
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