Drafting At OL

With the combine having just wrapped up, a free agency yet to begin in a couple of days I want to take a glance ahead at the draft while these college players are on my mind.

Right out of the gates I'm going to explain that, I don't watch college football. Casually during the season if a big game is on I'll tune in but the way that I follow the Eagles, can't even be compared to my knowledge of college football. So I've talked about before, and will reiterate that when the offseason hits I cram a little bit with top prospects that are receiving media attention, but acquire all of my information regarding how these players look, from the experts. So in contrast to the NFL when I analyze players myself, considering I don't watch college football, any mention of a player is just from what I've learned recently.

Alright now it might seem like because of this issue I have no place in talking about who I think the Eagles are going to draft, that's kind of true. But I do know one thing, I know the Eagles draft history and how our front office thinks so the way I always piece it together is by identifying the position that I think the team is going to draft.

Right now the way things are shaping up I have no wavering in my mind the Birds are going to select an offensive lineman with their first pick in the draft. History shows...ok well last season...Kevin Kolb?, now that was just ridiculous but all prior history shows that Andy Reid uses the draft to build our offensive and defensive lines.

You look at the 9 draft classes under Andy Reid, since 1999, and 5 of those 1st round selections were spent on lineman. Starting with OT Corey Simon, than DE Jerome McDougle, OG Shawn Andrews, DT Mike Patterson, and DT Broderick Bunkley. Now branching off of the fact that Andy Reid now only values lineman so much but feels it best that they are drafted with our highest selection, looking at this roster offensive line in particular is in need.

I went into the 2007 with extremely high expectations for our offensive line and was left utterly disappointed. We went from allowing only 28 sacks in 2006 to 49 the following year...unbelievable. The primary reason that the team reached a 10-6 record and got into the playoffs in 2006, despite missing Donovan McNabb at Quarterback, was because of how solid that offensive line was. A big factor in the success of the line was the fact that, up until the playoff game against the Saints where Shawn Andrews had to be replaced by Scott Young because of an injury, the unit was able to stay healthy and work together all year.

Things changed this season as both Offensive Tackles Jon Runyan and William Thomas battled injuries at various parts of the year. Runyan didn't miss a start, continuing his streak of starting 176 straight regular season games, but he was banged up by the time the year ended. In October Runyan slipped in the cold tub at the Nova Care Complex and suffered a glute contusion that hampered him for weeks, but he didn't allow it to force him to miss a start. By the time the season ended against the Bills though Runyan left the Week 17 game early with a concussion.

As for William Thomas he sprained his MCL against the blow out of the Detroit Lions, and this caused him to miss the matchup against the New York Giants where the Eagles were humiliated. In Thomas's absence Winston Justice started at left tackle and the result was miserable, the Eagles offensive line gave up 12 sacks to the Giants with Winston Justice being absolutely destroyed by Osi Umenyiora, allowing him to accumulate a 6 sacks of his own.

For me, these all point to the fact that the Eagles are going to want to draft someone, other than Justice, to back up and eventually replace at least one of the players in this offensive tackle tandem. Considering that Thomas is now 33 years old, Runyan 34, the time is arriving that one of these guys are either going to drop off the map or have a much harder time fighting through those injuries and have to miss games.

Current problem with that is going into the season I was predicting that Winston Justice would be the guy to fill that need when it occurred, but with the 1 game that he started we saw that he isn't a reliable option. I'm not ready to give up on Justice but we do need to draft someone else for security reasons.

With all of that in mind, we seem to be in luck with this years draft class because it is being said that this is one of the strongest group of offensive lineman in a long time. Draft analyst Mike Mayock has 9 offensive lineman, 6 offensive tackles, that he believes could go in the 1st round alone, (with possibly 8 going by the time Day 1 closes out) so we seem to have a deep group to choose from.