No Philadelphia Eagles featured at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere

For the first time in recent memory, none of the members of the Philadelphia Eagles’ draft class appeared at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere event.

The Philadelphia Eagles are world champions.

Even though it’s been a little over three months since the team’s Super Bowl 52 victory over the New England Patriots, it’s nice to know that after almost a 60-year drought Philadelphia is a city of champions once more.

But unfortunately for the boys in midnight green, they still can’t seem to get the respect they deserve nationally. While much has been written about the team’s desire to remain hungry even as they sit atop the pro football world, the Eagles have received yet another chip to place on their shoulder as the 2018 NFL season inches closer and closer.

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Over the weekend, the NFLPA held their annual Rookie Premiere event, where they highlight the newest crop of potential NFL superstars and unveil their PANINI trading cards, but for the first time in over half of a decade, not a single Eagles player was in attendance.

Just to put that into perspective, the last time the Eagles didn’t have a player represented at the event was all the way back in 2011, while current stars like Carson Wentz, Nelson Agholor, Zach Ertz, and Nick Foles are all alumni of the event.

But how could this be? How could fourth-round picks like Keke Coutee, Mark Walton, and DaeSean Hamilton all get invited to the event but our own Dallas Goedert, the 49th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, not be?

I mean even players like Kyle Lauletta, Mason Rudolph, and Mike White received invites and they may not see the field in a regular season game for years.

Well, one reason may be the blandness of the Eagles’ 2018 draft class.

Say what you will about the team’s haul from last months draft, a tight end, a nickel corner, an injury prone defensive end and a pair of project tackles, but the word sexy really doesn’t come to mind. Outside of Goedert, who could deceptively turn into an upper echelon player at one of the leagues’ more underappreciated positions, the birds really didn’t go out of their way to select a flashy playmaker with a household name with any of their five picks, much to the chagrin of the more casual arm of their fanbase.

But did the Eagles really need to make a splash at the draft?

No, no they didn’t.

As the proud owners of one of the deepest, most complete rosters in the entire league, the Eagles went into the draft with virtually no glaring holes on their depth chart and really had an opportunity to select the best player available at each pick, regardless of position.

Furthermore, the Eagles also had an opportunity to project players out a few years into the future, and select players based on they potential ceilings, as opposed to their floors. With every single starter from the 2017 returning for the 2018 campaign (sans punter Donnie Jones), Howie Roseman and company could simply select whichever player they ultimately deemed the best long-term fit on their roster moving forward, and didn’t have to reach for a player at a position of need to replace a departing star (see Cowboys, Dallas).

Next: This has been a horrible week for the Cowboys receiving corps

While it would have been nice to see Goedert, Avonte Maddox or even undrafted hopeful Josh Adams‘ smiling face alongside the 2018 class of players deemed the future stars of the NFL, I think building a deeply competitive roster capable of competing for championships for years to come is a little more important than the glitz and glamour of a glorified photo shoot.

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