In Eagles' draft strategy, players must fit their system

After the Eagles traded LeSean McCoy last month, owner Jeffrey Lurie said the team preferred a one-cut runner for its offensive scheme.

When Eagles coaches offered evaluations of Riley Cooper last season, they often praised the receiver for his blocking on the perimeter despite a decline in statistical production.

The Eagles bypassed more decorated safeties on the 2014 free-agent market to sign Malcolm Jenkins because he offered a better fit for the team's defense.

In each case, the Eagles made clear that their evaluation of a player goes beyond what outsiders might think the position requires.

Last week, Ed Marynowitz, the Eagles' vice president of player personnel, outlined the team's evaluation criteria leading up to the draft, which starts Thursday and runs through Saturday. The criteria included "critical factors" specific to a position.

The team evaluates "basically the guy's athletic ability to play that specific spot, which is also relative to your system and scheme," Marynowitz said. "Every team is different. We've got certain prototypes for that."

Marynowitz said the team would seek the "best player available" mantra, heard in most NFL cities each spring leading up the draft, with one addition: the best available "for us." That implies that the Eagles' draft board will be different than other teams, because what the Eagles need for their scheme is different than what other schemes demand.

"What Seattle is looking for is different than what San Francisco is looking for," coach Chip Kelly said in March. "I think the teams that do it the best are getting players that fit their system."

Although Alabama's Landon Collins is viewed by many draft analysts as the top safety in the draft, he might not be an ideal fit for the Eagles because he's more of an in-the-box safety and the Eagles require their safeties to cover like a cornerback.

"The way we play our safeties, we like those guys to be able to roll down and play slot coverage," Marynowitz said. "In order to play man coverage, they have to have the athleticism to do that. Typically, the traditional box safeties don't have that."

This exercise can be applied to almost each position for the Eagles. Cornerbacks must play press-man coverage. Wide receivers must be able to block and beat man-to-man coverage. Defensive linemen need to be adept at playing in a two-gap system. Offensive linemen must zone-block. Outside linebackers need to be able to set the edge in addition to rushing the passer and dropping into coverage.

At some positions, what the Eagles seek is vastly different than what they sought under Andy Reid. So the reconstruction of the roster has been an effort to find players who fit Kelly's specifications, and the draft is the best way to do so.

"If you change from one scheme to another, then what you're looking for in a player is different," Kelly said. "A 4-3 [weakside] linebacker is different than a 3-4 outside linebacker. That's just football."

When the Eagles had their front office shake-up at the end of the season, Lurie said in a statement that he and Kelly discussed an approach that would "seamlessly integrate the personnel and coaching departments." The scheme-specific scouting is part of that process, and it's up to Marynowitz to ensure that the scouts know what the coaches need from a player at each position.

"The guys that can't tell you what they want in a player are probably the teams that aren't successful," Kelly said. "If you don't understand what you want in a player or a defensive scheme or an offensive scheme, then you can never correct a mistake because you don't even know if you're making a mistake."

So when the best players available scroll across the television screen during the Eagles' picks this week, don't think that's the way the Eagles arranged their board. Because a talented player who doesn't fit won't be an option.

"If you're going to have a standard in any operation - your business, your newspaper, whatever - and say, 'I want to have a guy that is really good at this. This guy doesn't really fit the criteria, but let's just hire him anyways,' " Kelly said, "and you wonder why your business failed? It's because you lowered your standards to get to a certain point."