Philadelphia Eagles: Howie Roseman got great value for Lamar Jackson
While the Baltimore Ravens clearly won the Lamar Jackson trade, Howie Roseman got the Philadelphia Eagles deceptively great value to move down 17 spots.
In 2012, the Washington Redskins traded up four spots with the now-Los Angeles Rams to select Robert Griffin III, their quarterback of the future – and gave up an absolute fortune to get the deal done.
We’re talking a first-round pick in 2012, a second-round pick in 2012, a first-round pick in 2013, and a first-round pick in 2014.
Now on paper, this much draft capital should have been enough to build a legitimate contender around 2011 first overall pick Sam Bradford, but that’s the funny thing about the draft, it’s not where you pick but who you pick that matters.
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Of the eight players ultimately selected by the Rams for the Rams, only one player, Michael Brockers, remains on the team, with four of the eight draftees out of the league entirely as of 2019 (as per NFL Hall of Famer Gil Brandt).
Of the original picks traded to the Rams, the best was probably used to select Desmond Trufant, the Atlanta Falcons‘ top cornerback, and Janoris Jenkins, who is currently playing for the Giants as a slightly less shutdown cornerback.
Another notable player involved in the deal was famous draft bust Greg Robinson, who is now the starting left tackle for the Cleveland Browns on a one year, $5.5 million deal.
So you see, while adding picks is important, a general manager has to add great players to win any trade regardless of who is selected on the other side.
And while it’s only been one year, but it looks like the Philadelphia Eagles did just that in their 2018 trade with the Baltimore Ravens.
Granted, any time a team selects a quarterback, like the Ravens did with current talk of the town dual-threat signal-caller Lamar Jackson, they are going to the “winner of the trade”, but after one year, it looks like Howie Roseman made out pretty good for himself in what was essentially a move down 17 spots.
Initially, the deal looked fairly straight forward; the 32nd and the 132nd overall picks in the 2018 NFL Draft for the 52nd and 135th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft and a 2019 second-round pick.
According to the NFL Draft value chart (check out one on Bleacher Reports here), the 32nd pick and the 132nd pick (New Mexico State receiver Jaleel Scott) are worth 630 points, whereas the Eagles haul combined (with the 53rd overall pick in 2019) graded out at 788. Now granted, that evaluation isn’t exactly right, as a future pick is typically valued roughly one round lower than it present-day counterpart, but for argument’s sake, let’s say the Eagles slightly won out on value alone.
But one day after flipping a first to the Ravens for Jackson, the Eagles made a second trade and flipped the 52nd overall pick (Rutgers rusher Kemoko Turay) and the 169th pick (Mississippi running back Jordan Wilkins) to the Indianapolis Colts to leapfrog the Dallas Cowboys and select their namesake tight end Dallas Goedert 49th overall.
So all in all, the Eagles ended up with three additional players to secure the Ravens Jackson’s fifth-year option: Goedert, Avonte Maddox, and Miles Sanders.
That’s a pretty good haul.
Again, adding a contributing tight end, a flexible defensive back, and a potential lead rusher isn’t going to look better than adding a legitimate franchise quarterback who could conceivably have a 15 year career, but when you consider that Goedert was very much in play for that 32nd overall selection, Roseman made out about as well as anyone could hope.
I mean hey, at least all of the Eagles additions are still in the NFL.
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While the Lamar Jackson trade isn’t going to go down in NFL history in the same way as those for Herschel Walker, Ricky Williams, or even Robert Griffin III, its pretty impressive that both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Baltimore Ravens secured value in the draft and made their teams better both in 2018 and for years to come – Howie Roseman just got a few more opportunities to get it right.