Eagles have need, but bad history, drafting corners
PHILADELPHIA – The Eagles’ needs are obvious after letting both of their starting cornerbacks leave following last season.
That’s why many draft experts expect the Eagles to select a cornerback as early as the first round of the NFL draft beginning Thursday night, when they pick 14th. The Eagles haven’t drafted a cornerback in the first round since taking Lito Sheppard in 2002.
It would seem like a slam dunk, especially after ESPN’s NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. said “you can go 30 to 35 deep in terms of corners that can play in this league this year.”
Then he added: “I’ve got right now 18, 19 in the first two rounds in terms of defensive backs overall.”
Yet there are a litany of teams that have tried to address the cornerback position in the first round of the draft and faced disastrous results. The Eagles have experienced this, too, with their selections after the first round over the past 15 years.
The Eagles have drafted 12 cornerbacks since Sheppard and Sheldon Brown (second round) in 2002. Not one has become a full-time starter with the Eagles.
They have missed with Eric Rowe in the second round in 2015 (they traded him to New England last September); Curtis Marsh in the third round in 2011; and Trevard Lindley in the fourth round in 2010, just to name a few. Of the 12, Rowe has the most starts in a season with five.
The Eagles are by no means alone.
The Jets drafted Alabama cornerback Dee Milliner ninth overall in 2013. He’s out of the NFL. From 2011 through 2016, there have been 11 cornerbacks drafted among the first 15 picks. Only two have become Pro Bowl players — the Cardinals’ Patrick Peterson and the Bills’ Stephon Gilmore, who signed as a free agent with New England in March.
Only six are regular starters, and three of them were taken last year — Jacksonville’s Jalen Ramsey, the Giants’ Eli Apple and Tampa Bay’s Vernon Hargreaves — when teams are more likely to plug their new players in right away.
“It is probably the toughest position next to quarterback to play and you have to be an outstanding athlete and you have to be resilient,” said Eagles vice president of player personnel Joe Douglas, who is in his first draft with the Eagles. “You have to be mentally tough. These wide receivers are going to break you down and you have to be able to bounce back. So that is probably a big thing, the maturity, the resilience, the mental toughness.”
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Still, the Eagles might not have a choice but to gamble on a cornerback in the first round. That’s because their only returning corners with experience playing for them last season are Jalen Mills, their seventh-round draft pick, and veteran Ron Brooks, who’s still recovering from a torn ACL.
But can the Eagles rely on that player to become the next Richard Sherman or Josh Norman, considered the top cornerbacks in the NFL? Both of those players, incidentally, were drafted in the fifth round — Sherman by Seattle in 2011, Norman by Carolina in 2012 (he now plays for Washington).
The Eagles haven’t had any success drafting a cornerback in the later rounds, either, other than perhaps Mills, who played 65 percent of the snaps last season. In 2015, they drafted two cornerbacks in the sixth round — JaCorey Shepherd and Randall Evans. Both were released before the 2016 season.
That only makes it even more imperative that the Eagles find a cornerback in this year’s draft.
Ohio State’s Marshon Lattimore is expected to be the first cornerback taken and could likely go somewhere in the top five, long before the Eagles’ pick. After that, some draft experts have Lattimore’s teammate, Gareon Conley, going to the Eagles, or Alabama’s Marlon Humphrey, or possibly LSU’s Tre’Davious White.
That doesn’t mean any are a lock to succeed.
Even NFL Network draft analyst Mike Mayock has found fault with the top-rated players. He said Lattimore, for example, has only been a starter for one season at Ohio State and he has an injury history. Mayock said Humphrey hasn’t shown that he can find the ball in the air with his back to the quarterback, a necessity for a corner, especially on the back-shoulder passes along the sideline to a wide receiver.
Florida’s Teez Tabor, another possible first-round pick, ran relatively slow 40-yard dash times both at the NFL Combine and his Pro Day, which could affect where he is taken in the draft.
“After quarterback, you look at corners, and you say, ‘Do they have the toughest job on the field?’” Mayock said. “I mean, they’re running backwards against world-class sprinters. Then they have to find the ball in the air. I think when you look at corners, you have to go back to the basics, and the basics for me are two things: Number one, can you find the ball in the air, with your back to the quarterback? And number two, are you willing to tackle? They’re the two biggest reasons why big plays occur — corners who can’t do those two things.
“There are a lot of pretty-looking guys who run fast [going] forward, in shorts. I think we make mistakes sometimes when we fall in love with the guy with the oily hips and the great change of pace. Then we forget that they either can’t catch the ball or they won’t tackle. So I think that’s where most of the mistakes are made.”
Mayock said he does like Conley, and said he would be a good fit for the Eagles at No. 14. But even then, he’d still rather the Eagles draft an offensive player to help out quarterback Carson Wentz.
“I look at it this way,” Mayock said. “If Conley is on the board at 14, you have to compare him to the best playmaker on offense on your board because I’m not convinced the Eagles should go defense, to be honest with you. If Conley is not there, I think you want to go get your corner in the third round. And I think you need two corners.
“So I would be comparing Conley to the highest playmaker I have on the board offensively, and I might be leaning towards offense if it was me.”
Mayock said teams can get starting-caliber corners as late as the fourth round. Douglas, meanwhile, was asked how many cornerbacks he has rated as draftable, meaning the player can come in and contribute right away.
“I can’t give you the exact number, but it is significantly higher than in probably the past three, four years,” Douglas said.
Mayock mentioned Colorado’s Chidobe Awuzie as a possibility in the second round, or San Diego State’s Damontae Kazee as a third-round pick. That could also include Washington’s Sidney Jones, who was expected to be the second best cornerback in the draft, behind Lattimore, before tearing his Achilles during his Pro Day workout. A team could draft Jones in a middle round, then wait until 2018 before he’s ready to play.
But beauty seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Kiper said Lattimore could be the next Darrelle Revis, despite starting for just one season at Ohio State.
“The guy was a steady player,” Kiper said about Lattimore. “He was the guy that was the lock down corner. He looked like he could be Darrelle Revis. He looked like he could be that cornerback you can take in the top 10 and he would be spectacular. He’d be one of the best cover men in the NFL. He doesn’t have to worry about being handsy and grabbing and holding. He can actually cover.”
Still, whomever the Eagles draft, he will be tested right away. That’s because in the NFC East, the Eagles will face some of the best wide receivers twice a season in Dallas’ Dez Bryant and the Giants’ Odell Beckham Jr. Even Washington free-agent signee Terrelle Pryor could be a tough matchup after having a breakout season in 2016 for Cleveland.
It won’t take long before those opponents will expose any weakness.
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @Mfranknfl.