While writing about the Eagles and the NFL Draft today, I started a section about strange draft patterns over the years. Well, it ended up ballooning into way more than just a paragraph or two and now here’s a big ol’ article about how weird our team has been. You would think drafting from schools that win the most would be a solid strategy. This is not rocket science: good recruits make good teams which make even better prospects. I just cracked the code! This simple math has apparently baffled the Eagles since the beginning of time (1936). Here is a look at some of those odd draft patterns from some of the biggest schools…
Alabama Crimson Tide
When the Eagles drafted DeVonta Smith in 2021, it changed everything. Not only was he the 1st Heisman trophy winner taken by the Birds since 1964,1 but he ushered in a new era of Eagles drafting from the Crimson Tide and the SEC. The next round it was C/G Landon Dickerson, then Tyler Steen, Jihaad Campbell, and all the Georgia guys followed in subsequent years.
Why was drafting Smith so different? He was the first Tide pick by the Eagles of any kind in 20 years. The last was 2002 5th round pick WR Freddie Milons who never played a down in the NFL. Using a high pick on him was even stranger. The last Alabama player taken by the Eagles in the top 4 rounds was RB Siran Stacy taken in the 2nd round in 1992. It gets weirder. Before Stacy, the Eagles hadn’t selected an Alabama player higher than the 8th round EVER!!! They don’t even have 8 rounds anymore.
The Tide famously experienced a post-Bear Bryant lull in the 80s, but that ended with Gene Stallings in the 90s and they were back to their halcyon days with the Nick Saban by 2007. All in all, they have 13 National Championships in the NFL Draft era with 84 1st round picks. Of those 84, Smith was the Eagles first one in 85 years!!!
Georgia Bulldogs
The Eagles saw the dominant 2022 National Championship winning Georgia Bulldogs defense and decided they wanted it. Since then, they selected Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Kelee Ringo, and Smael Mondon from that defense. Before that deluge though, no Bulldogs were selected since they used a 4th round pick on Brandon Boykin in 2012.
Granted, that 2022 Championship was the first for Georgia since 1980, but it had still been a regularly highly ranked school battling in the SEC that whole time. That didn’t mean the Eagles took much notice though. Before Davis, the previous 1st round pick was Bernard Williams in 1994. In that time, only Reggie Brown was selected in the top 3 rounds. That’s one top 3 pick in nearly 30 years!
Before Williams in 1994, the Eagles selected DB Ben Smith in the 1st round in 1990. He was the first EVER Bulldog selected by the Eagles in the 1st round. He was also the first Bulldog selected at all since 1974 when DT Jim Cagle was taken in the 5th round. That means for a period of 30 years, only Williams, Smith, and LB Whit Marshall (1996 5th round) went to Philadelphia.
Georgia has had 51 all time 1st round picks. Before Davis, there were 41 and only 2 were taken by the Eagles. Of the ten since Travon Walker went #1 in 2022, 3 have gone to the Eagles. Of all the Eagles draft picks over their 90 years of drafts, 27 have been Bulldogs with 13 coming in the first 4 rounds. 5 of those 13 came in just the 2022 and 2023 drafts.
LSU Tigers
LSU has been a hotbed of talent for a long time with 53 first round picks in their history that includes 5 National Championships. 31 of those picks and 3 of those championships have come in the last 22 years. Sounds like a good time to catch a Tiger, right? Only 5 Tigers have become Eagles in the last 22 years with only 1 being drafted higher than the 6th round (Bennie Logan 2013 3rd round). Let’s keep going. How many Tigers have been drafted by the Eagles in the last 55 years? 6! That’s right, between Norman LeJeune going in the 7th round in 2003 and John Sage going in the 17th (!) round in 1971 there was only TE Greg LeFleur in the 3rd round in 1981.
The Eagles have not taken an LSU player in the first 2 rounds of the draft since 1961 (Bo Strange). Strange though was a 2nd round pick. Only twice in 90 years have the Eagles selected a Tiger in the 1st round and they just happened to be brothers: Steve Van Buren (1944) and Ebert Van Buren (1951). Apparently, no one since has known the secret sign of the Van Buren Boys.
Ohio State Buckeyes
The Buckeyes have had at least a share in 9 National titles since their first in 1942. All-time they are 882-270-36 with 40 conference championships and are consistently one of the best college football teams in the nation. This is not news. Despite this lengthy history of success, the Eagles have simply not been interested.
The Eagles have not selected a single Buckeye since 2011 when they made linebacker Brian Rolle their 6th round pick. Before that, there were a few late round picks, but the last time they used anything higher than a 4th round pick on a player from Ohio State was in 1996 with QB Bobby Hoying. They’ve won 3 national titles since then and have been ranked in the top 10 at some point all but twice. That’s baffling. In fact, other than Hoying, they have only selected two Buckeyes in the top 3 rounds ever! They would be Keith Byars in 1986 and Jim McDonald way back in 1938.
To show how weird this is, no school in CFB history has more first round picks than Ohio State’s 95. Their very first? The Eagles Jim McDonald! That means there have been 94 since him and Keith Byars is the only one who went to Philadelphia and that was 40 years ago.
No idea what the aversion is to drafting from one of the best college football programs ever.
Miami Hurricanes
This is a very specific era I’m talking about. The Hurricanes owned college football from 1983 to 2004 winning 5 National Championships and holding a #1 ranking at some point in 11 of those 22 years. Those teams were legendary talent factories too with some of the best players ever rolling through Coral Gables. They had 149 players drafted in that period with 43 of them being 1st rounders and 15 more 2nd rounders. How many of them became Eagles? 6 total. Only two were taken in the first two rounds too (Jerome Brown 1987 1st round and Jerome McDougle 2003 1st round). What the hell guys??? This was basically the opposite of the 2022-23 Howie/Georgia strategy.
I know there are a lot of schools out there and the above omissions were probably due a lot to coincidence and bad luck, but it’s still very strange. You would think that they would have targeted these particular schools in some way, but it seems as though the opposite was true. Surprise surprise that the best era in Eagles history has corresponded with taking the top talents from the top schools.
All draft pick history from Pro-Football Reference and Saturday Down South
- The Eagles have a weird history with the award. They have drafted 4 winners overall including the very first, Jay Berwanger. However, Berwanger and the Eagles 3rd winner, John Huarte, didn’t sign with the Eagles. Berwanger never played in the NFL and Huarte went to the AFL instead. Davey O’Brien (1938) and Smith are the only two to get drafted and immediately play for the Eagles. ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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