Should the Philadelphia Eagles bring Skyy Moore back to Pennsylvania?

In the eyes of many a fan, the prospects of leaving the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft without a new wide receiver under contract would be a disaster.

Sure, the addition of Zach Pascal is much appreciated and should elevate the floor of Nick Sirianni’s passing offense a good bit from its 2021 iteration, the team is still lacking in the way of premier, ascending young talent, with only two wide receivers on rookie-scale contracts, DeVonta Smith and Quez Watkins, guaranteed snaps – let alone a roster spot – on the 2022 team.

While drafting a receiver in the first round doesn’t guarantee a team an elite playmaker for years to come, as Jalen Reagor has proven, the Pro Bowl routinely features more wideouts chosen in the first 32 picks than the 200-plus subsequent selections combined, and for good reason: Developing wide receivers is hard.

But hey, in a class where five, six, or even seven wide receivers could hear their names called on Thursday night, there should still be plenty of quality pass-catchers available on Day 2 and even Day 3; players who maybe aren’t going to become offensive focal points but could become quality contributors for years to come in the right offensive scheme. One of those players is likely Western Michigan’s Skyy Moore, who would look darn good back in his home state as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Skyy Moore would be a second-round absolute steal for the Philadelphia Eagles.

There’s nothing about Skyy Moore that particularly jumps off the screen.

He isn’t as tall as London Drake, as fast as Jameson Williams, or as dynamic as Treylon Burks and Garrett Wilson, who might just be the first two receivers to come off the board next Thursday. While some will point to Moore’s 4.41 40 time as evidence that he could be a down-the-field deep threat as a pro, his time is slower than Chris Olave‘s, and at 5-foot-10, 195 pounds, that probably isn’t the role he will excel in as a pro.

But what Moore can do, however, is get himself open in the short-to-medium areas of the field and make plays once the ball is in his hands.

At the NFL level, Moore is going to be a quarterback’s dream. While he lacks size and has a wingspan that ranks in the 18th percentile according to Mockdraftable, he has quarterback-sized hands and an elite 10-yard split number at 1.46 seconds, which signifies an ability to get up to speed in a hurry. If deployed out of the slot, Moore’s short, medium, and long-range speed should give opposing defensive backs fits, especially when his ascending route-running abilities are factored into the equation.

Now granted, all three of the Eagles’ premier wide receivers, DeVonta Smith, Quez Watkins, and Zach Pascal, are all effective players deployed out of the slot and present very different flavors from that specific position. If Nick Sirianni and company feel comfortable with that trio cycling in and out of the slot and would rather target a big-bodied X receiver, then players like Christian Watson, Alec Pierce, and George Pickens should all be available at pick 51 and fit that bill better. But if the team instead wants a professional pass-catcher who can serve as a safety valve for Jalen Hurts in the short and intermediate areas of the field when his down-field options are covered, well, then there just aren’t that many better options in the draft, period, regardless of when his name comes off the board.

Realistically, there are three positions the Philadelphia Eagles will likely target in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft: WR, CB, and DT. While they could opt to throw the league world a curveball and draft anyone from a quarterback, to a defensive end, or even a center like Iowa’s Tyler Linderbaum, it’s hard to imagine any position group taking priority over those three. If the board breaks a certain way and the wide receivers the Eagles deem worthy of a top-20 selection are gone before pick 15, fear not, as the prospects of draft players like Jordan Davis, Andrew Booth, and Skyy Moore with picks 15, 18, and 51 would be a pretty darn one-two-three punch, especially when you consider the downgrade of talent at cornerback and defensive tackle from the first round to the second.