Bowen: Senior Bowl week a good place to score players
MOBILE, Ala. - Doug Pederson, Frank Reich, Jim Schwartz, Howie Roseman and the rest of the new Eagles' regime will convene here Tuesday to start sorting out prospects for the 2016 NFL draft.
MOBILE, Ala. - Doug Pederson, Frank Reich, Jim Schwartz, Howie Roseman and the rest of the new Eagles' regime will convene here Tuesday to start sorting out prospects for the 2016 NFL draft.
Senior Bowl week, held in this bayside city whose downtown area is maybe a tad larger than the South Philly sports complex, is a throwback to the NFL of 40 or 50 years ago. One practice is held at a high school field, the others at South Alabama's Ladd-Peebles Stadium, where groups of scouts and coaches congregate on metal bleacher seats, job seekers pass out business cards to anyone who will take one, and agents are easily identified as the guys dressed and coiffed like no one else in the state of Alabama. (As Marisa Tomei said to Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny, "Oh, yeah, you BLEND.")
At night, there are a half-dozen seafood restaurants and maybe three bars where just about everyone seems to end up.
Of course, we'll watch the Eagles' group watch the players. Who's that guy Schwartz is talking to - is he a defensive line coach? We'll also watch for Chip Kelly in his 49ers warmups, Pat Shurmur in Vikings gear, and Pederson mentor Andy Reid, hard to miss in KC red, or in just about any other color.
Shurmur was a candidate for the job Pederson got, then before Reich and new quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo were hired, there were thoughts Shurmur could still remain in some capacity. Will he and the Eagles' group avoid one another? Now that he doesn't work for the Eagles, will Shurmur have any thoughts about the demise of the Kelly era?
Roseman kicked off his return to power Monday by signing tight end Zach Ertz to a five-year contract extension reportedly worth $42.5 million. Roseman was not in Mobile last year, for the first time in more than a decade, after then-coach Kelly got him removed from personnel decisions. Howie ought to be hard to miss this year, and we'll watch to see which agents he engages with. Defensive linemen Vinny Curry and Ced Thornton can be free agents in March; Schwartz seemed to hint they might be more attractive candidates for new Eagles deals, working in his scheme, than they would have been in Bill Davis' 3-4. Fletcher Cox, the Eagles' best player, in any scheme, is under contract for 2016 at $7.799 million, the team having picked up his fifth-year option. The team surely wants to lock up Cox long-term and lower his 2016 cap number.
Then there's the whole Sam Bradford situation. Ertz said Monday, at the news conference announcing his deal, that Bradford wants to stay with the Eagles. What do Roseman and Pederson really want? And, oh yeah, what about that player personnel guy the Eagles need to hire?
Maybe we'll start to focus on the prospects at the Scouting Combine next month.
But you might be interested in them now, even amidst all the other subplots, so here are some highlights:
The big name this week is Carson Wentz, a quarterback who is exactly what this week is for. Wentz played at North Dakota State, where he won the Football Championship Subdivision title the past two seasons. He's big (6-5, 225), strong and smart. But nobody has seen him practice or play against defensive players who are headed for the NFL. He is riding a lot of late buzz, after suffering a broken wrist in October that took him out of the discussion, then returning to lead his team to the championship victory over Jacksonville (Ala.) State.
It might not be an exaggeration to say that a really good Senior Bowl week is much more important to Wentz's draft status than the Combine or any campus pro day workout. It seems a little like 2008, when Delaware's Joe Flacco, of Audubon, N.J., was a late Senior Bowl invitee - another big, strong quarterback, with sometimes suspect feet, from below the top level of college competition who had to show he fit in. The Ravens' path to taking Flacco 18th overall that year began with his Senior Bowl practices.
We don't know whether the Eagles will be looking at a QB at 13th overall, or if it's likely Wentz will be there if they are looking at that, but this week might start to give us some clues.
There are other QBs, maybe not first-round types, but it's early - Jeff Driskel, the former Florida guy who ended up at Louisiana Tech, and Mississippi State's Dak Prescott, to name a few.
In the wake of the 2015 season, Eagles fans no doubt will be interested in offensive line prospects. There is no way the Birds will make it three years in a row without drafting an o-lineman; it's hands down their most pressing need.
Stanford offensive tackle Kyle Murphy (6-7, 301) is a guy you'll be hearing about. Ditto Indiana OT Jason Spriggs (6-7, 305), Baylor OT Spencer Drango (6-6, 310) and Kansas State guard Cody Whitehair (6-4, 305). Those all look like prospective first-rounders right now.
The best athlete at Ladd-Peebles might be Braxton Miller, the former Ohio State quarterback turned wide receiver. The Eagles' offense lacks explosive, game-changing talent, which Miller (6-2, 215) might provide.
Even though the anticipated switch to a 4-3 base will give the Birds a pretty big crowd of defensive linemen, including Connor Barwin and Brandon Graham, they lack a truly elite, lights-out pass rusher. The most interesting guy there might be Noah Spence (6-3, 261), formerly of Ohio State, who finished at Eastern Kentucky. We know Kelly probably wouldn't have been interested in a drug rehab guy, but we don't really know the stance of the Roseman-Pederson regime.
Like so much else, we'll start to sort that out this week.
On Twitter: @LesBowen
Blog: philly.com/Eaglesblog