As the creative process began in putting this one together, there wasn’t a plan to offer a defense of Philadelphia Eagles vice president/general manager Howie Roseman. Things change though, so here goes.
Have you ever found yourself in a conversation about the NFL Draft and made statements like ‘it’s a crapshoot’ and ‘half of these guys won’t work out anyway’? Well, though it may not seem like it, those statements were made decades before Howie had the power to make draft choices on the Eagles’ behalf.
Every professional sports franchise has swung and missed on draft choices before. It’s just a part of the game. Howie won’t be the last Eagles executive to take the wrong wideout. He definitely wasn’t the first.
Long before we sulked every time we watched D.K. Metcalf play or tried to fathom why anyone would think that Jalen Reagor would be a better pro wide receiver than Justin Jefferson, the Eagles swung and missed on Freddie Mitchell… sort of.
Years later, the man with a million nicknames, Freddie Mitchell, still evokes emotion among Eagles fans.
Okay, we have to be fair and establish a few things. It isn’t like Freddie didn’t make plays. Who can forget about ‘4th and 26’? The problem was he didn’t make enough of them. He just acted as though it was a regular occurrence when he made one.
His final snap with the Birds came during a Super Bowl loss to the New England Patriots. He hasn’t been forgotten for both good and bad reasons. Recently, FanSided’s own Randy Gurzi cooked up his take on “One NFL player you wish never played for your favorite team”, and unfortunately for the man with a million nicknames (The People’s Champion, Fast Freddie, First Down Freddie, Hollywood, The Sultan of Slot, FredEx), Gurzi elects to give him an unfavorable mention.
Here’s an excerpt:
"Mitchell was a former first-round pick who spent much of his career trying to find his spot with the Eagles. He went back and forth from the No. 3 receiver who played in the slot to the fourth spot, which led to him sitting on the bench often.In four seasons, he had 90 receptions for 1,263 yards and five touchdowns. Not a great amount of production from a player taken in Round 1 — and even worse when it was from someone who trash-talked as much as he did."
There was also one other minor detail about Philly’s decision to take the former UCLA Bruins star with the 25th-overall selection. They passed on a slew of wideouts who were better.
Check out this list of names: Reggie Wayne, Chad Johnson, and Chris Chambers. There was even a future NFL legend that may eventually find his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a man everyone ignored a couple of times, third-round selection Steve Smith, not to mention other notables that may have had better runs in the midnight green: Alge Crumpler, Kris Jenkins, and Kendrell Bell among others.
The man who once said “I’d like to thank my hands for being so great” holds a unique place in the hearts of Eagles fans. He did some things that we loved. He did some things that made us cheer, and he did some things we’d rather forget, but we’ll stick up for Freddie Mitchell if no one else will.
Philly has certainly done a lot worse in the way of guys we wish hadn’t played here. Think about Mike Mamula, Danny Watkins, and Nnamdi Asomugha if you need any evidence of that statement.
Then again, who are we kidding? Freddie probably still doesn’t understand why he’d even be considered to be on this list in the first place.