Time For The Philadelphia Eagles To Tank

Eagles Not Getting Any Younger

So what should the team do?   With a draft that has a first pick at 13, and doesn’t pick again until round three, it seems awfully unrealistic to place a fictitious hope that the team will nail a franchise quarterback which twelve other teams allowed to slide past them.  At one point in time, it could happen. In the era of social media, instant access to information, and a public with access to so much real time knowledge to use to petition their teams, it’s less likely to happen.

But what the team could do to turn this weakness into a strength is to hire a new head coach, give him complete autonomy to start young players, instruct the personnel department to seek out young men with huge upsides, and even turn today’s draft currency into tomorrows draft picks.  If they take a flyer on Kansas City Chiefs quarterback coach Doug Pederson, they will raise a few eyebrows.  But can they expect immediate results.  Not if they look at our current roster objectively.  The team is sitting on no starting quarterback, a pourous offensive line, and a defense with holes opening up due to free agency.  There are too many holes in the damn, and not enough fingers.   Do we fight against hope, or go with the flow and just tank for a year?

Tanking in the NFL is a short term process.   With seven draft picks, a team can trade down and back, using the impulse of today into the strategic planning of drafting tomorrow. With the right trading partner, the Eagles could convert their thirteenth pick into a first round pick in 2017, plus later round picks this year.   So why all this concern about draft picks?

Chip Kelly liked veterans. To find out how much, I had to tap into an article by a fun Philly sports writer, Jimmy Kempski.   He illustrates the average age and rank of each NFL team.  In the article, you can see how much the Eagles have aged under Chip Kelly.  In fact, the year before Chip Kelly arrived (2012), the Eagles were the second youngest team in the NFL. But times change. In 2013, the team had shot up to the tenth youngest team. In 2014, the team had fallen to the 19th youngest team. In 2015, the Philadelphia Eagles were the 28th youngest team out of the 32 team National Football Team. Youth is important to a football team. Not only do younger men heal more quickly, but younger players have longer NFL careers ahead of them.

Next: Use Free Agency To Our Advantage