Three rookies eager to get clean slates with Eagles

CHIP KELLY was a finicky personnel shopper.

He had very specific size-and-weight parameters for almost every position.

He wanted smart guys with college degrees and growth mindsets. Didn't want guys with character questions.

If nothing else, Howie Roseman proved last month that he is a little more, uh, open-minded than Kelly.

He drafted a 5-9 defensive back (Blake Countess) who never would have passed muster with Kelly. He selected another guy who somehow managed to spend five years in college and never declare a major.

Most significant, he drafted not one, not two, but three kids with character issues - West Virginia running back Wendell Smallwood, LSU defensive back Jalen Mills and Florida defensive end Alex McCalister.

Smallwood, a fifth-round pick from Wilmington, Del., was accused in 2013 of trying to get a witness in a murder case not to testify against a friend. The charges eventually were dropped.

Mills, taken in the seventh round, was arrested for second-degree battery in April 2014 when a woman accused him of hitting her in the face and knocking her unconscious. The charge was later reduced to misdemeanor simple battery.

Mills pleaded no contest, agreed to enter a pretrial diversion program and eventually had the charge expunged from his record.

McCalister, also a seventh-rounder, was suspended for the first game of the season last year at the University of Florida, and then reportedly was dismissed from the team in mid-December before the Gators' appearance in the Citrus Bowl - a report both McCalister and his UF coach Jim McElwain have said is untrue.

Two scouts I spoke with after the draft said their teams had taken all three players off their board because of their off-the-field issues. If Kelly still were the head coach of the Eagles, he probably would've done the same.

But Roseman was willing to take a late-round chance on all of them.

"When you make questionable decisions in your life, it affects you going forward," Roseman said after the draft. "And it's costing these guys a lot of money.

"What we hope is that they're good people and that they just made mistakes, like we all do. And that we develop them, and that, going forward, this is all just part of their history, and something they learn from."

Drafting Mills, even in the seventh round, took some guts. While he probably has the highest potential upside of the three players - he was a four-year starter at LSU and two teams had a third-round football grade on him - domestic violence is a hot-button issue, particularly with the NFL, which was a little late to the party in realizing the seriousness of beating up women.

"He has to prove himself once he gets here," Roseman said. "We're satisfied with the investigation that was done down there in Baton Rouge and with the university. We think we know what kind of kid this is. But again, he gets here and he's going to have to prove it here.

"We forget sometimes that these are college kids and things happen. We were comfortable enough with the set of circumstances that were described that we thought it was worthwhile to give him a second chance here."

The circumstances surrounding the incident with Mills still aren't altogether clear. He insisted that he didn't know the woman he was accused of punching and wasn't the one who hit her.

"It was basically her word against mine," Mills said Friday before the start of the Eagles' three-day rookie minicamp. "Domestic violence is very serious around the whole U.S. Women, nine times out of 10 usually have the upper hand until you go to court.

"She had a witness (that said he hit her) and I had several witnesses, too (that said he didn't). We just carried on until the process was dropped."

Why then, did he agree to enter a pretrial diversion program and plead no contest?

"It's just something I decided to do," he said. "I didn't want it to go to court. I didn't want it to linger on. It could have lingered on forever. We didn't have a date for trial. I just wanted to get back to school and get back on the team."

Someone asked Mills whether he was going to have to watch how he behaved going forward?

"I don't have to watch how I behave because that's not a problem in my life," he said. "I don't do those types of things. That's the first time I got in trouble my whole life.

"I grew up in a single-parent home. (My mother) raised me. (She and) my grandmother and my two aunts. Just me being raised around women, they taught me how to cater to a woman and how to love a woman and not to do those things I was accused of."

Mills was a four-year starter at LSU. Started his first two years at cornerback and his last two years at safety.

The 6-foot, 191-pounder will start his professional career as a corner with the Eagles. He said he has made a complete recovery from last August's leg injury, which sidelined him for half the season.

He suffered a fractured fibula and torn ligaments in his ankle, which required the insertion of a steel plate in his foot.

He could have elected to redshirt after the injury and stayed in school another year. But he said he wanted to get back on the field with his teammates and he also thought he was going to go a lot higher than the seventh round, which tells you all you need to know about the value of a good agent.

McCalister, a 6-6, 243-pound defensive end with a skinny frame and long wingspan that has drawn physical comparisons of another former Eagle out of the University of Florida - Jevon Kearse - also thought he would get drafted much higher than he did.

"My agent told me the third or fourth (rounds), maybe the fifth or sixth," he said. "I got drafted in the seventh. I'm a little pissed off. Anybody would be pissed off if they were told the third or fourth and went in the seventh. But that's just extra motivation."

The third round was a pipe dream even if he had the character of Mother Teresa, which he doesn't.

"He's a kid who just needed to grow up a little bit," Roseman said. "He's not a bad person, not a bad kid. Certainly physically talented."

McCalister blamed his early-season suspension on "immaturity.'' Said he violated some team rules. "I missed too many meetings and stuff like that," he said. "Just being immature. I was young and dumb. I regret it. But it's something I learned from. Something I'll never do again."

Like Mills, McCalister's final college season also was marred by an injury. He tore ligaments in his ankle in a mid-November win over South Carolina. Missed the Gators' final four games, including a loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game and another loss to Michigan in the Citrus Bowl.

He said the foot is fine now, and said he also has bulked up from 235 to 243. His playing-weight goal is 255.

"This is a grown-man league," he said. "In college, I could finesse and get around the edge (at 235). But here, I've got to have the strength to two-gap."

Not to mention the strength to keep his nose clean and get to meetings on time.

@Pdomo Blog: philly.com/Eaglesblog