Eagles
Hey did you hear the NFL had their draft last week? Probably. You’ve likely seen a lot of breakdowns from stats, projections, players comps, or some other type of hard core analysis. We’re not going to be doing any of that here and instead look at some intangibles. We’ll start with the Eagles first round pick.
The Philadelphia Eagles drafted Mikai Lemon 20th overall. If we look strictly at the intangibles, there’s some pros and cons. In order to draft him, the Eagles had to trade with the Cowboys to jump in front of the Steelers. If he turns out to be a superstar, we’ll forever get to laugh at the clip of the Steelers on the phone with him as the Eagles draft him. On the other hand, Steelers wide receivers tend to be phenomenal talents that all seem to have something off. Need examples? Take a look at both Pickens and Antonio Brown perform wrestling moves.
Lemon’s last name is also synonymous with a car that has a defect in it. Not great if he struggles and everyone gets to make the easy lay up joke. Rookie mentals are an important part of their growth in the NFL so knowing a joke can be made could hurt in the long run and create a self-filling prophecy. If you’re a 30 Rock fan like myself, they’ll be plenty of positive jokes we can make to offset them.
Second round the Eagles drafted Eli Stowers, former basketball player. Expect it to be mentioned frequently and to hear Jimmy Graham’s name pop up for no other reason than being a basketball player. Not that it’s a bad thing, but it does lead to a player being type-cast as a receiver focused tight end when I’d rather see him grow as a blocker. You’ll also get easy nicknames on tough catches about how he “stowed” the ball away from defenders.
Listen all of these won’t get a full breakdown. Some are just simple analysis like Markel Bell’s name rhymes so I like him. Way easier to remember and root for a player with a recognizable name. Or maybe the player has a recognizable school like Cole Payton and North Dakota State. His intangibles are that 50% of Eagles Super Bowl wins come with a NDSU back up QB. Another is that Micah Morris went to Georgia so the Philly Bulldogs continue for another year.
We’ll round it off with the seventh round picks. First (of the last round) for the Eagles was Cole Wisniewski. Do not confuse him as a relative of Stefen Wisniewski, former Eagles guard during the Super Bowl run. Now if you had a nickel for every time the Eagles had a Wisniewski, you’d have two nickels, which isn’t much but still strange.
Continuing with being confused on a player, we have Uar Bernard. The confusing part is that he wasn’t an actual football player. That means I couldn’t even provide stats analysis if I wanted to do it. This isn’t the first time the Eagles drafted someone with no football experience, Jordan Mailata obviously. The strange thing is that if you had a nickel for every time that happened… no I’m not going to make that joke again. I’m certainly not going to go full meta and make a joke about how if you had a nickel for every time I made a if you had a nickel joke…
Lastly we have Keyshawn James-Newby. Name kind of sounds like a player from year 10 of your franchise mode generated when all the real names run out. Honestly I hope he stays with the team for a long time. It’ll be very funny to have a 10-year vet with the last name “Newby”. The good news is that he helped balance out the offense versus defense number of picks (even if all three defensive players came in the seventh round).
Now you may wonder why I don’t just analyze the players and stats to give predictions? Truth is so much comes down to how the players adapt to a much higher competition, new coaches, city expectations, or things like media pressure from idiots who like to make jokes instead of analysis. What we expect hardly ever matches what we’ll see in future endeavors. All we can do now is make jokes and try to support the players the best we can, but as always, Go Birds!
Sources: Gene J. Pusker EvilTodd24 on YouTube, Steelersfan7 on Instagram
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Hello, I’m a greater Philadelphia native writing mostly about the Eagles and the rest of the NFL. Articles aren’t … More about Kyle Lavin
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