Philadelphia Eagles: Grading the NFC East’s Day 1 selections
After patiently waiting for the better part of three hours, Howie Roseman added a bit of excitement to the 20s by trading up three slots to secure Washington State tackle Andre Dillard with the 22nd-overall pick.
While the move did cost a fourth and sixth round pick to pull off, it was clear the Houston Texans were ready to pounce on the 310-pound tackle with the 23rd-pick, making the minor trade all the more sweet for fans in the 215.
Credited by some as the top overall tackle in this year’s draft class due to his absolute wizardry in Mike Leach‘s air raid passing game, Dillard is big, but hyper-athletic, running a 4.96 40-yard dash at the combine.
The Eagles now have two tackle who ran sub-5.0 40-yard dashes, and two more interior linemen, Jason Kelce and Brandon Brooks, who did the same.
Now sure, some say Dillard needs to work on his run-blocking, as the Cougars threw the ball about 70-percent of time, and he seldom put his hands on the ground, but the Eagles selected a pair of TCU tackles in consecutive drafts who came from a very similar scheme, so they clearly don’t see that as a negative in the player evaluation process
Could Dillard start right away at left tackle, moving Jason Peters inside to guard? Will he instead shift inside to guard and move Isaac Seumalo into reserve swingman roll off the bench? Only time will tell, but even if he’s reserved to the role of sixth-man coming off the bench, Dillard clearly makes the Eagles a better team now and for the foreseeable future.