Early Birds: No smokescreens for the Eagles; Ed Marynowitz involved in trade negotiations; and hitting on late-round picks

1) NFL teams can no longer host draft prospects for visits. They can still work out a prospect on his campus or in his hometown, and the Eagles have been exhaustive about in-person research throughout the spring – whether it's their 30 visits, pro days, private workouts, etc.

There are different schools of thoughts about these visits. In most cases, it's simply due diligence – you want to take advantage of seeing any prospect you can. Sometimes, there are smokescreens to try to create the perception that a team is interested in someone for trade purposes. Eagles vice president of player personnel Ed Marynowitz said the Eagles do not engage in the latter, and their visits/meetings are more than due diligence. In fact, there's something specific they're trying to learn or discover each time.

"We're not into wasting time," Marynowitz said. "We're not into going just to go. We're not into smokescreens. We go for a reason. We meet extensively as a group. Anytime somebody's at a workout, there are specific questions that they need to get answered. Some of them may be intangibles.  They need to go visit with a position coach, some sort of contact that they have at the school, an academic advisor. Anybody that has insight on what the guy is. Other players we may be okay from a character, attitude, intelligence standpoint."

In other cases, there might be debate in meetings about a player's specific skills. So Marynowitz could think one cornerback is able to play the ball deep, but another scout thinks that cornerback has questionable ball skills. So they'll go again to watch the prospect with a specific focus on that area.

"So we're going to come away and everybody that goes to a pro day, it's their responsibility to come back with answers to the questions that we had," Marynowitz said.

2) Player evaluation is only one part of Marynowitz's job. His NFL experience has been as a scout, but now he's also a negotiator for contracts, a manager of people, and at times a public face. So how has the adjustment been to those other parts of the job?

"I think there is certainly a learning curve any time you advance professionally," Marynowitz said. "We have a lot of good people around here that have been able to help and assist in that, but the majority of my work was done beforehand in player evaluations.

"In some previous roles that I had before I joined the organization, I had some good experience managing people, working with a demanding head coach before, so there have been a lot of things that have been able to translate.  But in terms of contract negotiations, trade talks, those are things that you kind of learn on the fly, but I've relied on the people here to help with that."

Trade negotiations during the draft will be interesting. There's a certain Poker game involved, and Marynowitz doesn't have as much experience or as many relationships as an established general manager. Marynowitz said the Eagles are still determining the logistics of the draft room, but he will be involved in trade talks.

"It will be me and some other people, but, again, it's a little bit to-be-determined on how we're going to approach that," Marynowitz said.

3) The Eagles' three-prong evaluation criteria can be applied early in the draft. Later in the draft, it's harder to find a player that satisfies each part of the criteria. That's why late-round picks are more difficult – there's more projection, more flaws, or less potential. The best teams find a way to hit on those picks. Jason Kelce turned into a Pro Bowl center from the sixth round. Byron Maxwell was a sixth-round pick in Seattle who turned into a Super Bowl starter and a $60-million free agent.

"I think when you're looking at the later rounds, I think the best philosophy to have is, 'What can they do?'" Marynowitz said. "There is a reason why, certainly, they're not a guy that is in the top three rounds. But it's more about what they can do rather than what they can't do in the later rounds. I think sometimes in the later rounds you may defer a little bit more to numbers in terms of testing numbers and what they have in their body. You want guys that have athleticism and traits that can translate."