Eagles think big with first three picks

Lane Johnson told a big, ol' Texas tale when he came to town on Friday to meet and greet in his first official day as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.

"Just trying to add some flavor to the supper," Johnson would say later, after admitting that his history as a wrestler of black bears in East Texas was a yarn he spun for the telling.

He insisted that he has indeed chased down and tackled wild pigs - heck, even Kevin Kolb could do that - but the stuff about tangling with bears, mindful of the claws at all times, well, that didn't really happen.

If anyone can get away with a tall one, it should be Johnson, who is 6-foot-6 now, and steadily grew from quarterback to tight end to defensive end to offensive tackle during his collegiate football career. The next logical step would be goalpost, but he has appeared to level off.

No one will care what Johnson says as long as he can play football as well as coach Chip Kelly and the rest of the Eagles organization think he can. Let's face it. Things might have turned out better in the last couple of years if Danny Watkins made up the part about being a fireman but could actually play right guard instead.

From the first two days of the draft, we know that Kelly values size and speed, which doesn't make him unique among NFL coaches. He wants to play the game fast, and it really doesn't matter if some of the guys also play fast and loose with their ursine accomplishments.

After getting Johnson, who tips it at 303 pounds, in the first round on Thursday, Kelly went for 6-5 Stanford tight end Zach Ertz in the second round. Kelly worried that the 49ers might pick off the local kid with the pick ahead of the Eagles, and then worried that Tennessee might do the same thing when the Titans swapped into that spot. Instead, Ertz was still there and Kelly snapped up the player he called a "mismatch nightmare."

Kelly has a theory that a lot of guys who used to become mid-major power forwards are now opting to play football in college, and Ertz is one of them. Compared to the shorter, slower, broader tight ends of a decade ago, these guys can really run and really catch.

"He's too athletic to put a linebacker on him," Kelly said, leaving unsaid the obvious flip side of that. A man as big as Ertz could have the ability to run over a secondary defender.

Kelly said he likes to use tight ends a lot and thinks Brent Celek, Ertz and free-agent signing James Casey could all see significant playing time. He might have been telling the truth or he might have been wrestling bears, particularly the part about playing all three at once.

"Just go like that [raising three fingers], and three tight ends go into the game. If they go three linebackers, we split 'em up and throw passes. If they go three DB's, we smash 'em. Pick your poison," Kelly said. "It's a simple game. You thought coaching was hard. If they bring in little guys, you run the ball. If they bring in big guys, you throw the ball."

It's always funny, and easy in April, and building a football team with the unsullied reputations of your draft picks is the best way of all. There's nothing to say that Kelly isn't right about all of it, because he hasn't made a bad pick in his NFL career yet, or lost a game, or had to bench or cut someone he touted. All of that will come, but what matters is the percentage he gets right.

They stayed on the heavy side of the line in the third round with defensive tackle Bennie Logan of LSU, who is 310 pounds and, according to Kelly, "we think he can be bigger. He has growth potential."

Logan started out as a defensive end but moved to the inside and Kelly says that's where he will play for the Eagles. He pointedly refused to say whether Logan could be a nose tackle, because that would indicate a leaning toward a 3-4 defense. "He'll play inside for us," Kelly said.

And then they rested for the night, having added three players and approximately 860 pounds to the roster in the first two days of the draft. Unlike previous years, there was no moving around in these rounds, no trading up or down, just a dedication to getting large guys and fast ones if possible.

"Our philosophy is to get big people and beat up on little people," Kelly said.

He didn't draft a bear wrestler, though, and he didn't draft a bear, either. American black bears top out at 6 feet and 200 pounds, so why would he?