Philadelphia Eagles 2020 NFL Draft: Final Grades, Analysis and Context

FINAL GRADE: B+

Scouting and selecting players in the draft is never easy. It is a year-long process that takes thousands of man-hours to accomplish. Roseman, the Philadelphia Eagles front office and scouting department should congratulate themselves on another draft in the history books.

For some fans, it might be difficult to decide how to feel about their team’s 2020 NFL Draft. It is likely the decision to draft Hurts will be a Rorschach Test on how an individual is feeling about the Philadelphia Eagles this season.

It will definitely go down as the most controversial pick for the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2020 NFL Draft. It seems to set up a potential powder keg in the team’s locker room, putting Wentz in a tough situation, along with his teammates, about what their future holds.

If the players buy into the idea that Hurts will be used as the “Taysom Hill” of the Philadelphia Eagles, there won’t be much confusion as to Hurts’ role on the team. But it seems to put Wentz in the unenviable spot (once again) of having to look over his shoulders every time he makes a mistake on the field.

Some fans in 2018 blamed Wentz’s regression to the presence of a newly-minted Super Bowl MVP as his backup, putting pressure on his shoulders to match what Foles had done that previous postseason.

Only time will tell if drafting Hurts with such a valuable pick was worth whatever comes next. There are hundreds of scenarios that could happen with Hurts and Wentz on the roster. Many of them are unpleasant or will lead to locker room problems, but some of them are really great and are worth considering with an open mind.

Outside of the Hurts pick, it was a solid haul for the Philadelphia Eagles roster. They addressed their two biggest needs (wide receiver and linebacker) with multiple picks, giving them options if some of them don’t work out. Reagor will hopefully become the number one receiver on the roster and will have a solid group of veteran wide receivers to tutor him in 2020. Not to mention Roseman did the best thing a general manager can do in the draft and that’s adding value without sacrificing quality.

The roster still has holes. The cornerback unit is one injury away from having another bad season. The running back group, while undervalued by Roseman, is dangerously thin and has a second-year rusher to lead them all season. And while linebacker was addressed twice in the 2020 NFL Draft, neither pick seems ready to be taking snaps consistently in their rookie season.

There is still time to plug some of the other holes on the roster. But with OTA’s and preseason training likely abridged in 2020 due to the COVID-19 quarantines, the Philadelphia Eagles will have even less time to get these draft picks up to speed. They will have to learn as they go during training camp, assuming, of course, there is a training camp in 2020.

Certain fans will be disappointed by the 2020 NFL Draft. But compared to recent years, it was a relative haul. In 2019, they only had four draft picks that made the 53-man roster. Of which, only one was a meaningful contributor during the regular season. The rest either sat on the bench or had backup duties.

Did Roseman make the most of the team’s early-round picks and bring in game-changing players for 2020? Outside of Reagor, no. But he set the roster up for the future, drafting quality players at valuable positions that will potentially develop and be useful past 2020. As either starters, backups or trade-bait.

That isn’t as exciting as getting a player with draft hype. But the process of developing a roster is rarely exciting past the second round. If you believe a general manager should draft valuable players with potential in the draft (which all analytics and history indicate works), the 2020 NFL Draft was an incredible success for Roseman and the Philadelphia Eagles. Only in five years will we have an accurate grade of how well Roseman actually did this year in the draft anyway.

So just relax and enjoy the game.