Philadelphia Eagles: Are Goedert and Dillard better than Ramsey?
While the Jacksonville Jaguars’ asking price for Jalen Ramsey is huge, are the Philadelphia Eagles most recent top picks, Dallas Goedert and Andre Dillard more valuable?
Before Gardner Minshew and the Jacksonville Jaguars took the field for a (spoiler alert) Thursday night win over the Tennessee Titans, NFL insider Ian Rapoport presented fans of football across the world with a question: would you trade your favorite team’s last two first-round picks for Jalen Ramsey.
While this is a pretty fun thought experiment, there is one problem when it comes to the Philadelphia Eagles: they didn’t have a first-round pick in 2018.
Well, that’s not true, technically the Eagles did have a pick, 32nd overall, but it was used by the Baltimore Ravens to select Lamar Jackson – netting a slew of picks in compensation.
The potential Jalen Ramsey trade brings up an interesting situation for GMs: Would you trade two late 1s to ensure you get a young All-Pro in his prime? Look at each team’s last two first-rounders and think, would you trade them for Ramsey? It’s a good exercise.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 19, 2019
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But just for the sake of argument, let’s ignore all but the team’s first 2018 selection, Dallas Goedert, as it would be unfair to also include players like Miles Sanders and Avonte Maddox in such a hypothetical – yeah, they were technically part of the Jackson trade too.
Alright, so Dallas Goedert and Andre Dillard versus Jalen Ramsy; who ya got?
Well, let’s talk stats first.
Since entering the league in 2016, Ramsy has started all 50 games he’s appeared in for the Jaguars – including a fairly superfluous Week 3 bout against the Titans (presumably) on the eve of a blockbuster trade. Over the course of that tenure, Ramsey has logged 202 combined tackles, 45 passes defensed, nine interceptions and a touchdown in route to a pair of Pro Bowls and an All-Pro honor.
Goedert and Dillard, on the other hand, have combined for eight starts in 18 games with all of their stats, 35 catches for 350 yards and four touchdowns, belonging to the second-round tight end out of South Dakota State.
While Ramsey clearly gets the nod statistically over a much larger sample size, hypothetically swapping out two players for one isn’t as simple as replacing production for production.
The question isn’t really whether the Eagles would be better off with Goedert and Dillard specifically over Ramsey, but which is more valuable long-term: a potential left tackle of the future and a starting-caliber tight end versus and lockdown man press superstar cornerback.
Alas, Howie Roseman may have made this too easy.
Despite Jason Peters going strong at the ripe old age of 37, it’s not too hard to imagine Dillard eventually taking over Carson Wentz‘s blindside sooner rather than later – but does the Washington State product have All-Pro potential? I mean Peters only earned All-Pro honors twice over 16 NFL seasons despite making the Pro Bowl nine times.
With only one, sometimes two players at any given position being named to the All-Pro team, its exceptionally hard for a player to make the grade once, let alone twice.
Fortunately, or maybe not, we probably won’t have to worry about Goedert’s All-Pro potential, as he has virtually no chance to make the team as long as he’s playing second banana to Zach Ertz. Now, this isn’t a knock against Goedert’s potential as a pro – far from it – but it’s hard to imagine a second-stringer ever having enough production to earn a Pro Bowl nod, let alone be among the best players in the league at their position.
Pair that with the presence of Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and our very own Zach Ertz and Goedert’s ceiling tops out as a top-four, maybe top-five target in Doug Pederson‘s hybrid West Coast spread offense, but nothing more.
Ramsey doesn’t have that problem.
As the best cornerback in the NFL, Ramsey would obviously be the best cornerback in any secondary – with an ability to take away half of the field from opposing offensive coordinators. Sure, he may have a bit of an eccentric personality, but don’t you kind of swagger in a superstar cornerback? Fans in Philly love Jalen Mills for his short memory and finger-wagging, imagine that energy inside the 6-foot-1, 209-pound body of a 4.41 running All-Pro.
That’s like a dream come true.
So ultimately, are Goedert and Dillard better than Ramsey straight up? No. Could they be if they eventually hit their projected ceilings? No.
Since Ramsey was selected fifth overall in 2016, 125 other corners have been drafted, and despite that volume, he remains the undisputed best – better than Marshon Lattimore, better than Denzel Ward, and better than Xavien Howard, the only other player drafted in 2016 or later to earn All-Pro honors.
dark. Next. Jalen Ramsey is worth the asking price
While a team like the Philadelphia Eagles could conceivably find two players in the late-20s who are better than Jalen Ramsey – anything is possible I guess – the chances of finding just one is infinitesimal, let alone two. For my money, two first-round picks may actually be too low of an asking price for the All-Pro’s services. But what do you think? Is Ramsey better than Dallas Goedert and Andre Dillard straight up? Let us know!