Philadelphia Eagles top 15 draft picks taken from 2007-2021

Jeremy Maclin and Brent Celek are two of the more underrated Eagles in franchise history.

Andy Reid was known for beginning most of his drafts by selecting someone to strengthen the Eagles in the trenches. More often than not, we could bank on an offensive or defensive lineman being the choice.

In 2009, he went off of the grid some, selecting a six-foot, 198-pound wideout from the Missouri Tigers. We can say now with confidence that’s a move that worked out for them.

Merrill Reese once stated that the trio of Jeremy Maclin, DeSean Jackson, and Jason Avant was the best he had seen. We believe we can take Merrill’s word for it. Maclin was much better than he’s sometimes remembered for being, but we’ll tell you this. Place him in any era of Eagles football, and he’d be effective.

In five seasons, he hauled in 353 receptions for 4,990 yards, and he reached the end zone 37 times (those numbers include the playoffs). He appeared in 77 games over that stretch, and he started all but two of them.

We repeat. The Eagles know what they’re doing when it comes to evaluating the tight end position. Gosh, they’ve had some good ones, and long before any Eagles fan knew who Zach Ertz or Dallas Goedert was, Big Red utilized the 162nd-overall selection in 2007’s NFL Draft on a lesser-known prospect from the Cincinnati Bearcats’ program by the name of Brent Celek.

How did that work out? Pretty good actually. Brent played 11 seasons for the Eagles, appearing in 175 games with 132 starts. That resulted in 425 receptions for 5,255 yards, and he reached the end zone 34 times while helping the Eagles win their first Vince Lombardi Trophy (those numbers include seven starts in nine career postseason games).