What Is The Draft Buzz Saying
A whole lot - and maybe nothing at all. As expected, the Eagles have made nary a whisper about the draft and their intentions, and the mock drafts don’t seem to have locked in on what the Eagles are thinking.
The buzz.
Andy Reid
There isn’t one, yet. At 14, the Eagles are in the enviable position of having options. They can move up in the draft - as far up as they want, really, given the six draft picks in the opening four rounds they have. If you were to believe the mock drafts, the Eagles could take anyone from a running back to an offensive lineman, to a defensive lineman to a wide receiver to a linebacker. Nobody has a good feel for what the Eagles are thinking.
Inside the offices of Andy Reid and Tom Heckert, though, the plans are being made. The Eagles have no doubt prepared numerous mock drafts of their own, have considered multiple scenarios and have talked to just about every team in the league about possible trade scenarios.
Reid has always been willing to dance with multiple partners in the draft. He trades early, he trades often and he trades not at all. So, publicly, the draft buzz is saying all kinds of things, but nobody knows for sure - and that nobody includes Reid and Heckert - of what the Eagles will do until the time comes and they are on the clock.
Generally, as Reid has explained it in the past, the Eagles collect a group of names from which they will consider at a certain pick. If every player from that group is on the board, the Eagles will take the one they think fits the best.
If none of the players is on the board, the Eagles would likely trade out of that slot. If the Eagles don’t think those players will last to the pick, they’ll have to make decisions: Trade up to have a chance to potentially draft players in that group, remain where they are and hope one of the players slips to them, or move back in that round.
Surely, the Eagles are assessing their options on potential draft picks. But we don’t know the mechanisms of what is happening behind the scenes until just after noon on April 29. That’s when the action will truly begin.
