Redoing the Eagles' drafts: 2006-08
If teams were allowed to go back and redo their first-round picks from 2006-2008, who would the Eagles have ended up with?
That's part of what ESPN.com's Rick Reilly looked at recently.
He went year-by-year, ranking the top 32 players in the first round, based on what we know now. Reilly also looked at first-round picks and projected where they should have gone (again, knowing what we know now).
In 2006, the Eagles selected Brodrick Bunkley with the 14th pick. But according to Reilly, if NFL teams did a draft do-over, Bunkley wouldn't have been picked until the seventh round, 205 picks later at No. 219.
Bunkley has not lived up to expectations, but I have a hard time believing there were 218 players selected in the 2006 draft that have been better than him. At times (not last year), he's been an above-average defensive tackle, and Bunkley has started 52 games overall.
As for who they should have taken in the first round? Riley has Bengals cornerback and pending free agent Jonathan Joseph as the 14th-best player. He has another cornerback, Cortland Finnegan, at No. 15 and Chiefs defensive end Tamba Hali (14.5 sacks last season) at No. 16.
In 2007, the Eagles traded out of the first round to take Kevin Kolb. In Reilly's re-draft, he has Kolb going off the board at No. 16, 20 spots higher than he originally went. That makes him the top quarterback in the re-draft.
Reilly has another Eagle going in the first round too: Brent Celek. He has Celek being drafted at No. 29 as the second tight end off the board behind Oakland's Zach Miller.
The Cowboys, of course, took Anthony Spencer with the Eagles' first-round pick at No. 26 that year. In his re-draft, Reilly has Cowboys offensive tackle Doug Free going 26th and Spencer dropping to the second round.
And finally, in 2008, the Birds traded out again and took Trevor Laws and DeSean Jackson in the second round.
In his '08 re-draft, Reilly contends that Jackson would have been the No. 3 overall pick, behind only Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan and Titans running back Chris Johnson. Baltimore's Ray Rice and Kansas Citiy's Jamaal Charles rounded out the top five. The only other wide receivers among the top 32 players in Reilly's re-draft are Indy's Pierre Garcon and Buffalo's Steve Johnson.
The Panthers ended up taking offensive lineman Jeff Otah at No. 19 with the Eagles' original pick. Reilly argues Otah would go 29th if the draft was done over today. He's got Packers tight end JerMichael Finley at No. 19, with Lions defensive lineman Cliff Avril and Chiefs cornerback Brandon Carr right behind him.
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