A way-too-early 2021 Philadelphia Eagles-only NFL Mock Draft

It’s beginning to look a lot like 2020. Might we be able to make the argument that everyone’s top corner on their draft board for next year is the best cornerback on the Ohio State Buckeyes‘ roster? It isn’t like it hasn’t happened before.

Truthfully, it kind of feels like it’s headed that way. Conventional wisdom (or just an educated guess) tells us that Shaun Wade, a Third-team All-Big Ten nod in 2019, slides into the top spot on the Buckeye’s depth chart and maybe gets some first-team or second-team votes in 2020 with so many of last year’s teammates sitting on NFL rosters.

Many expect Wade to catapult himself into the minds of college scouts and draft experts. Let’s just assume he’s the first wideout taken and the Eagles head into the 2021 offseason with the narrative that they need cover guys. Hey, isn’t that their story every offseason?

The question is who will be second on everyone’s draft board? Is it Stanford’s Paulson Adebo, the South Carolina Gamecocks‘ Israel Mukuamu, or Patrick Surtain II of the Alabam Crimson Tide?

For the sake of this argument, we’ll place Adebo at number two, seeing as how he would have been taken in the most recent draft. Perhaps that then means Surtain lands third in the rankings?

After passing on Kristian Fulton in favor of Jalen Hurts, failing to draft a corner in the most recent selection meeting, and with there being no real certainty of what Cre’Von LeBlanc and Avonte Maddox are to become, it seems as though there’s some likelihood that the “Birds” may go with a cover guy early in 2021’s selection meeting.

In this scenario, Philly makes the playoffs in 2020, so they pick later. Wade and Adebo go early, and that puts the Eagles in position to snatch Surtain sometime later in the first round.