Late-Round 2020 NFL Draft targets for the Philadelphia Eagles

Wide Receiver

Now that the Philadelphia Eagles have settled their top cornerback position by trading for Darius Slay from the Detroit Lions, the team’s undisputed top need in the 2020 NFL Draft is wide receiver. This is a position that the Philadelphia Eagles will need to address at least twice during the draft and will likely see a late-round selection going towards one.

This time last year the wide receiver depth chart appeared to be a position of strength for the offense and was one the reasons hopes were so high for the Philadelphia Eagles going into 2019. Now they enter a 2020 season with several questions about who their star quarterback Carson Wentz will be targeting and potentially even who will be the lead wide receiver.

DeSean Jackson is back in 2020 and should be considered the lead target on the offense. But he is 33 years old and coming off a season where he appeared in just three games. Jackson has a long history of injuries that affect his presence on the field, as 2013 was the last season he saw a full 16-game season.

Not since 2016 has Jackson had more than 1,000 yards receiving and this lack of dependability will affect how much the Philadelphia Eagles coaching staff will depend on him going forward.

J.J. Arcega-Whiteside was drafted in the second round last year and had a forgettable rookie season. He had 10 receptions on 22 targets, good for a 45.5 percent reception rate.

Considering the number of wide receivers injured on the roster in 2019, he should have had all the opportunities he could want. But 169 yards receiving and one touchdown is not a good way to start an NFL career. He’ll be back in 2020 but how much the offense depends on him is anyone’s guess.

Besides Jackson and Arcega-Whiteside, the rest of the wide receiver group looks to be in a state of flux for 2020. Alshon Jeffery will almost surely be released with a post-June 1 designation, which would allow the team to spread his roughly $26 million dead cap across two seasons. Nelson Agholor is a free agent and will almost certainly not be back this season.

The Philadelphia Eagles will have to invest some serious resources into the wide receiver position between now and the start of the 2020 regular season. They will almost certainly invest an early-round draft pick and at least one late-round draft pick for the wide receiver position.

The Philadelphia Eagles should check out Isaiah Hodgins from the Oregon State Beavers if they want to find a tall, sure-handed wide receiver that is impressive at the catch-point. Measuring in at 6-foot-4, 210-pounds at the Combine, Hodgins has the size and build to compete on the outside with the best cornerbacks in the NFL.

Hodgins had limited usage during his freshman and sophomore season but in 2019 he exploded from a statistical standpoint. In 12 games last season, he hauled in 86 receptions for 1,171 yards and 13 touchdowns, per Sports Reference.

Hodgins is hardly a complete player and would need some training once he arrived in Philadelphia. For starters, he ran a 4.61 on the 40-yard dash, which is well below-average. While showing great body-control at Oregon State, he is not particularly athletic for a player of his size. He isn’t fast off the line of scrimmage or even taking off vertically, let alone on more complicated routes.

But Hodgins does have something that is a trump card in the NFL today: he seldom drops the ball. At Oregon State, he was able to bring in contested catches with relative ease and may have the best ball-control of any wide receiver in the draft.

Dropped passes from players like Agholor, Jeffery and Arcega-Whiteside have defined games during the last two seasons. A player with Hodgins’s skills should be intriguing for the Philadelphia Eagles organization. The fact he lacks speed and impressive physicality for his size, along with the depth of this year’s receiver draft class, projects him to still be available on the third day of the 2020 NFL Draft.

The Philadelphia Eagles have been lambasted by local media for drafting an uninspiring receiver like Arcega-Whiteside in 2019 while passing on D.K. Metcalf. Metcalf looked dominant in 2019 with the Seattle Seahawks and almost single-handedly put the final nail in the coffin of the Philadelphia Eagles season during the Wild Card round.

If Roseman wants to make up for the colossal undervaluing of Metcalf they should take a look at Collin Johnson from the Texas Longhorns. Johnson is a full three inches taller than Metcalf at 6-foot-6 and looks like the reincarnation of Megatron. Unfortunately for him, he never was able to build up any speed in college or learn how to manipulate cornerbacks at the line of scrimmage, making him a late-round prospect in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Johnson has a ton of raw material for a patient NFL team to mold if they want a verified-monster on their hands. For starters, his nearly 31-inch arms create a huge catch radius for him to take advantage of, giving quarterbacks a wide target area to throw to.

His size should dwarf most cornerbacks in the NFL, making him a bully at the catch point. But in college, he would get pushed around by smaller defenders and he looked unsure how physical he could get. Wide receiver coaches in the NFL will have to show him how to throw his weight around without drawing penalty flags.

The Philadelphia Eagles love their tall receiving options and Johnson would be a great developmental player for them in the 2020 NFL Draft. Johnson only had 15 touchdowns in four seasons at the collegiate level. Which, if there was any justice in the world, his coaching staff would be put on trial for player-development malpractice.

If the Philadelphia Eagles new wide receiver coach Aaron Moorhead can train Johnson to correctly maneuver cornerbacks and build up some speed, Johnson could become one of the most dominating wide receivers on the roster. Moorhead will have a deep well of experience to draw upon, as he is a former player, who is listed as 6-foot-3 and should know the skills big receivers need in the NFL.

If the Philadelphia Eagles are serious about getting younger and building for the future, giving Johnson the time to develop could offer them some strong returns past the 2020 season.

Another reclamation project for the Philadelphia Eagles would be Donovan Peoples-Jones for the Michigan Wolverines. A five-star recruit coming out of high school, Peoples-Jones was supposed to be the Wolverines outside deep threat going into the 2017 season.

When he failed to produce his freshman season, he was rotated during games between the outside and slot positions for the next two seasons. This caused Peoples-Jones to be a master of none at the receiver position, neither truly a slot or outside receiver. He did show some skills after the catch, gaining yards and breaking tackles. But he never showed enough while at Michigan to convince scouts he was worthy of an early round selection in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Listed at 6-foot-2, 208-pounds, Peoples-Jones has all the prerequisite skills needed to be an elite wide receiver in college without any of the actual production. He scored just 14 touchdowns in three seasons with Michigan.

That cannot be solely blamed on him, as another former five-star recruit, failing to live up to expectations was throwing him the ball. But his lackluster route-running and mental errors hampered Peoples-Jones from reaching something resembling his full potential in college.

The good news for him is that route-running is a skill that can be learned in the NFL. Put in the right position, he could become the deep threat he was projected to be coming out of high school. His testing is still well within the margins of an elite-NFL wide receiver. He ran a 4.48 at the Combine and had a 44.5 vertical jump, according to NFL.com. He has shown flashes at Michigan of elite pass-catching but sustained success has been elusive for the former five-star.

Watch this landing. That sideline footwork shows he has some of the technique necessary for NFL receivers.

Peoples-Jones also has special teams potential at the next level, as he led the Big Ten in punt return yards in 2017 and 2018, according to Sports Reference. Sproles used to do this and is no longer on the team, so having a productive punt returner on Special Teams who averaged 10 yards after the catch at Michigan (ranked number one in the Big Ten) is nothing to scoff at.

If Peoples-Jones could springboard his role on Special Teams to a back-up role as a big slot receiver, he could easily find a role going forward on the Philadelphia Eagles 53-man roster.

Peoples-Jones is far from the perfect receiving prospect. But in any other year, he would be projected as a late-day two receiver who needs to develop. Because the wide receiver draft market is oversaturated this year, the Philadelphia Eagles have an opportunity to get a higher value receiver for much less draft capital.