Eight selections. Eight assets. Eight opportunities to improve the roster for the 2025 season and beyond, and each one of those valuable chess pieces represents to the Philadelphia Eagles and to Executive Vice President/General Manager Howie Roseman decisions to make.
In the 2024 NFL Draft, one that paid immediate dividends and helped the Eagles win Super Bowl LIX, Roseman stayed pat and allowed the draft to come to him in Round 1 and the Eagles landed cornerback Quinyon Mitchell at No. 22 overall. And just when you thought Roseman was going to continue that approach, stay back and stand pat, he changed course in a record-setting way.
The Eagles traded up in Round 2 to take cornerback Cooper DeJean, another key contributor to the World Championship team in the 2024 season. That was just the beginning: By the end of the three-day NFL Draft weekend, the Eagles executed eight total trades, tied for most (with New England in 2018 and Houston in 2023) in a seven-round NFL Draft format.
This year? We're about to find out.
The Eagles hold the 32nd overall pick on Thursday night, the last of Round 1, and they’ve got eight total selections. After an extremely active start to the roster-building season – the Eagles signed 12 players in free agency and added two more via trade, in addition to retaining would-be unrestricted free agent linebacker Zack Baun – Philadelphia turns to this weekend's NFL Draft.
While the world's eyes will be on Green Bay, the site of the 2025 NFL Draft, the Eagles are ensconced at the NovaCare Complex. They've been working at this for 11 months now, with this weekend the focus.
It is showtime.
"I think that you have to be patient, one. 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," Roseman said. "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 (2018 and 2023), 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."
Now? The mock drafts have the Eagles doing any number of things because, making a blanket statement here, nobody truly knows what to expect from a team drafting No. 32 on Thursday night.
Roseman knows he's going to have to cool his heels for at least the first few hours of the NFL Draft.
"It's not my best quality, patience, but I think in this situation, understanding the reality of where we are in the draft," he said, "what's going to be available to us potentially, and making sure we know those guys backwards and forwards."
Each year is separate unto itself, and there is no accurate way to predict what the Eagles might do. What happens in the first 10 picks probably won't tell us a lot. Maybe not even in the first 15 or even 20 selections. After that? Perk up. Tune in.
That's when it gets interesting for the World Champions, who will be watching at No. 32, allowing the NFL Draft to come to them.
