The second of three NFL Draft days is now over, and the Eagles made their two selections, with one not being in the spot that people thought it would be. I'll get to that in a moment, however. First, I want to talk about the pick that they made in the second round, which was the pick they got from the Washington Redskins for Donovan McNabb.
With the 37th pick in the NFL Draft, the Philadelphia Eagles selected Nate Allen, a safety from South Florida. I mentioned yesterday that I wanted this pick to be either Allen or Taylor Mays, so the Eagles seemed to listen to myself and everyone else that wanted them to grab a safety in the early rounds of the draft. After sitting through the Sean Jones debacle of last year, the Eagles needed a big time upgrade, and I'm hopeful that Allen can be just that kind of player.
Nate Allen has good size for a safety, clocking in at six foot even and 207 pounds, and he's a great cover man as well, picking up five interceptions last season from the safety spot. There have been some concerns about his tackling ability, which is a red flag in my mind, but I'm not overly concerned about that yet. There's plenty of time for Allen to get used to the system that the Eagles use, and I think he was a little bit of an under the radar player, since Jason Pierre-Paul was getting most of the attention at South Florida.
I also expect Allen to be in the competition for the starting job right away. If he doesn't get it away from Quinton Demps or Macho Harris, then something is very, very wrong. This guy has a ton of ability, and some people had him as a late first round pick. For the Eagles to be able to grab Allen where they did is terrific, and he's going to help this team out for years to come.
Nate Allen grade: A
Then, things got interesting. The Eagles had the 55th pick in the draft, but traded it to the Dallas Cowboys for the 59th and 125th picks. They then took the 59th pick and traded it to Cleveland for the 71st pick as well as the 134th and 146th picks in the fifth round. Then, they traded the 71st pick to Green Bay for the 86th pick ad the 122nd pick. Finally, they made a choice at pick 86, and it left a lot of people scratching their heads.
With the 86th overall pick, the Philadelphia Eagles selected Daniel Te'o-Nesheim, a defensive end from Washington. This pick I don't like regardless of how many picks the Eagles picked up for tomorrow's fourth and fifth rounds. Te'o-Nesheim is another defensive end that projects better as a 3-4 outside linebacker in the NFL, which is something that the Eagles don't need right now. He has a good motor and is decent athletically, which sounds a lot like Chris Gocong. The only problem is, the Eagles just traded Chris Gocong, which should let you know how much he meant to this defense. This pick also seems like a bit of a reach to me, as the Eagles could have taken Te'o-Nesheim in the fourth round and gone for a cornerback like Brandon Ghee or Kevin Thomas.
The other thing that this pick does is create a logjam at defensive end. While the Eagles needed a standout end to go opposite Trent Cole, with this pick, they now have six ends on the roster, meaning that one is going to have to go. At this point, it looks like it will either be Juqua Parker or Victor Abiamiri who gets the short end of the stick. I like Parker, but he might be the one that goes, despite the fact it should be Abiamiri who loses his job with the Eagles. He's done nothing to earn a spot for another season.
The Eagles seem to make one of these mid round athletic defensive end picks every few years, even though the result is still the same. I see Te'o-Nesheim being more of the same, meaning that he'll stick around for a few years, end up overmatched and eventually he'll be cut. That's how it seems to work with these players, and with a few solid cornerback options on the board, I don't like this pick. Yes, it helped give the Eagles nine picks tomorrow, but do they really need nine picks in the last four rounds of the draft? I'd rather have seen them stay at 55 and pick a corner there.
Daniel Te'o-Nesheim grade: C-
As I just said, the Eagles have nine picks tomorrow, so things could get very interesting. I'll have a recap once the madness is finished.
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