Eight days out from the draft, and the biggest question of the offseason has yet to be answered.
What is the Eagles’ plan for the post-A.J. Brown Era?
This isn’t a question that you can shrug off. It would be just as pressing if Brown were guaranteed to return in 2026. He and Dallas Goedert almost certainly won’t be with the team in 2027 or beyond. Even if they are, they are highly unlikely to be anywhere close to the players they were when the Eagles’ offense was at its best. The chapters are short in the NFL. The pages must be turned.
The story of this year’s draft better be the pass catchers. Even if the Eagles somehow think their passing game can tread water with Dontayvion Wicks and Marquise Brown as their second and third options out wide, and with a 31-year-old and clearly diminished Goedert at tight end, those aren’t long-term solutions. The Eagles desperately need to find at least one in this year’s draft after going four years without selecting a pass catcher higher than 152nd.
A few points of emphasis:
You don’t find a lot of franchise-level offensive tackles in the second half of the first round.
Not since 2017 has a future All Pro tackle been drafted between picks No. 17 and 49. Even multiyear Pro Bowlers are few and far between. The Cowboys nabbed left tackle Tyler Smith at No. 24 in 2022. Before that, Garrett Boles was the biggest success story, going to the Broncos at No. 20 in 2017. Boles was the first offensive lineman off the board that year, thanks in part to a confluence of circumstances. Going before him were three quarterbacks, two unicorn running backs, and the first three members of a loaded cornerback class (Marshon Lattimore, Marlon Humphrey, Adoree’ Jackson).
The Eagle know first hand how hard it is to find a fixture in the second half of the first round. The last two offensive linemen they drafted there were Andre Dillard and Danny Watkins. There simply isn’t a lot of logic in the idea that the Eagles will be prioritizing an eventual Lane Johnson replacement at No. 23.
“If you’re forcing something, you’re not really filling the need anyway,” general manager Howie Roseman said on Tuesday.
The Texans went 4-12 in 2020. And while Deshaun Watson put up the best numbers of his career — 4,823 yards, 33 touchdowns, seven interceptions, a 70.2 completions percentage — the game script had something to do with them.
The Eagles have spent a lot of draft capital on the defensive line over the last several seasons.
Again, that’s not to say that they’d turn down an opportunity to draft an edge rusher they have graded as a potential elite talent who can start immediately. Chances are, anybody who fits that profile will be long gone by the time the Eagles are on the clock. They used the No. 31 pick on Jihaad Campbell last season. They drafted Nolan Smith at No. 30 in 2023. Of the last 11 picks that the Eagles have made inside the Top 115 overall, 10 have come on the defensive side of the football.
Jalen Hurts is a quarterback who needs an elite weapon that a defense can’t shade coverage to on every play.
DeVonta Smith counts as an elite weapon. But people need to pump the brakes on the idea that he is Jaxon Smith-Njigba in waiting. Several different media outlets have mentioned the construct in their reporting on the Brown situation. The theory goes something like this: with Brown gone, Smith will be better than he ever has been, similar to how Smith-Njiba blew up in 2025 after the Seahawks traded away D.K. Metcalf.
The problem with that reasoning is that Metcalf’s departure was the least significant of three major variable changes in the Seahawks offense last season. The first two were a new quarterback and a new offensive coordinator.
In fact, you might consider it four variable changes if you include Geno Smith’s departure in addition to Sam Darnold’s arrival. Jakobi Meyers’ decreased production year-over-year after Smith’s arrival at quarterback looks suspiciously similar to Smith-Njigba’s increased production in the wake of Smith’s departure. Meyers saw a 23% drop in his targets and a 36% drop in his receiving yardage on a per-game basis in his seven weeks with Smith compared to his 2024 output. And Meyers didn’t have to play in the shadow of Metcalf, either.
The real yin to Smith-Njigba’s yang was Justin Jefferson. In 2024, he caught 103 passes for 1,533 yards with Darnold as starter. This, despite the presence of Jordan Addison, whose numbers were practically identical to Metcalf’s. Addison was still there last year. Darnold wasn’t. Jefferson caught 84 passes for 1,048 yards.
A tidier summation:
- Jefferson without Darnold vs. ’24: 13 less targets, 19 less receptions, 485 less yards.
- Smith-Njigba with Darnold vs. ’24: 26 more targets, 19 more receptions, 663 more yards
Fairly symmetrical, no?
Smith-Njigba’s breakout happened because he had a quarterback who could make all of the throws, including those in traffic in the middle of the field. Hurts hasn’t shown to be that quarterback.
Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq should be at the top of the Eagles draft board. But don’t bet on him falling close to their range.
I’m still a bit puzzled that the majority of mock drafts have Sadiq falling into the second half of the first round. He is a physical specimen who tested off the charts at the combine. The only guy in his class over the last 20 years was future All-Pro Vernon Davis. The college production wasn’t eye-popping, but it also wasn’t much different from Colston Loveland, who went 10th overall to the Bears last season. All it takes is one team higher than the Eagles to fall in love with him. I’ll be surprised if he falls beyond No. 15.
That being said, if the Eagles somehow find a way to get themselves in position to draft Sadiq, they would have a tidy answer to their question of where to go after Brown (and Goedert). Sadiq is the one player in this draft outside the projected Top 5 who has the potential to immediately fix a lot of the Eagles’ offensive question marks, run-blocking included.
Even if Sadiq isn’t an option, the Eagles have good reason to hope they can nab a player who can help them in both the short and long-term.
Neither Texas A&M’s K.C. Concepcion nor Alabama’s Germie Bernard profile as the sort of outlier that Brown is/was. But both have skill sets and polish that would pair nicely with DeVonta Smith. Both are players who could exploit whatever attention defenses pay to Smith. Concepcion has a lot of Stefon Diggs to his profile, while Bernard looks like a potential Deebo Samuel with the frame and rushing ability to go with his hands. I’ve seen a few mock drafts that have Bernard on the board when the Eagles pick at No. 54. That would be a stroke of luck on the level of Cooper DeJean.
The moral of the story is simple. The Eagles can’t afford to force a pick at any position. But they also aren’t in a situation where they can afford to go purely for the best player available. They need to factor in their future salary cap and talent distribution. You can’t have too many All-Pro cornerbacks, but you can have too many who you need to pay.
Further, you can have too few players at positions that have shown themselves to be just as important to the Eagles’ success over the last several seasons.
Roseman shouldn’t get trapped into picking the best pass-catcher available. But he does need to hope a viable one is there.
