Eagles are running out of time to make a decision on Andre Dillard

When the Philadelphia Eagles drafted Andre Dillard with the 22nd-overall selection during Round 1 of the 2019 NFL Draft, no one had any major objections. We developed some buyer’s remorse later, but no one questioned the decision-making process at the time.

Jason Peters, a legend (one who had earned the nickname The Bodyguard) was aging. It made sense to find an understudy who would one day take the reigns.

Many of the draft’s more notable pundits saw Dillard as one of the top three left tackle prospects of his class. Ironically, he was the second taken behind Jonah Williams (Cincinnati Bengals). Fast forward, and Philly is right on schedule having found their left tackle of the foreseeable future. There’s just one small detail.

Philadelphia’s franchise left tackle isn’t Dillard at all. You see he wound up losing the job to a Samoan rugby star from Australia by the name of Jordan Mailata, a man who had never played American football prior to 2018.

Words like ‘bust’ and ‘trade bait’ have followed him since then, but if Philly has plans of moving on from him, it probably needs to be done now. They’re running out of time to make a decision, and they’ll never get more for him than they can get for him right now.

The Philadelphia Eagles must exercise Andre Dillard’s fifth-year option on May 2nd.

It’s obvious that Dillard doesn’t have a place in the Eagles’ long-term future. Again, Jordan Mailata is the franchise left tackle now, but in an NFL where there’s always a premium for solid play along the offensive line, especially for the guy protecting your quarterback’s blind side, Philly should be able to dump him off on someone.

They’ll need to hurry though. If they can’t move him during the NFL Draft or shortly thereafter, they’ll be forced to exercise his fifth-year option on May 2nd. That’s what we don’t want to see happen for obvious reasons.

Times have changed. The Eagles never seemed to have this issue with moving on from guys years ago (and they were always moving off of better players). They used to send guys packing a year or two too early (Brian Dawkins, Duce Staley, Troy Vincent, and Bobby Taylor). Now, they consistently move off of guys a year or so too late (Jason Peters, DeSean Jackson, Nelson Agholor).

Sure, they’d never admit this publicly, but they know it isn’t going to work with JJ Arcega-Whiteside, Jalen Reagor, and Andre Dillard. It’s obvious.

You can’t bash these guys publicly though. You’d never get anyone to enter into any negotiations with you if you did. One has to wonder what the market is for Reagor and Dillard. It’s easy to argue that there isn’t much of one, but they both have something going for them. They’re former first-rounders, and that almost always earns you a second chance with another team.