Philadelphia Eagles Drafts in Andy Reid Era

As an Eagles fan and an NFL Draft fan, I pay particular attention to how sportswriters portray the Eagles front office in Mock Drafts.  For years, I've been reading "You know Andy Reid loves drafting his big Offensive Lineman so he isn't the biggest guy in the locker room, so we think the Eagles will take X OT because he is one of the best Big Guys in this years draft."  Well I got sick of it because I couldn't really think of any 1st Round Offensive Lineman that they had drafted other than Shawn Andrews so I decided to go back and look at every pick the Eagles have made under Reid.

Since 1999, the Eagles have only drafted THREE Offensive Lineman in the first TWO Rounds.  They took Arkansas OG Bobbie Williams in the 2nd Round of '99, Arkansas OT Shawn Andrews in the 1st Round of '04, and USC OT Winston Justice in the 2nd Round of '06.  That doesn't exactly back up the "Andy Reid always takes an OL" theory so many mock drafters live by.  Reid has however drafted six Defensive Lineman and five Wide Receivers in the first two rounds during that time.  

In order to save our coach's good name from dastardly mock drafters everywhere I had to go back through time and pull records of every Eagles Draft from 1999.  While I was effectively able to debunk the "Reid only takes guys bigger than him in Round 1" groupthink myth I ended up with a lot of extra data.  Data in the form of a list of every single draft selection over that time.  As an Eagle fan it's really interesting to look at some of the different hits and misses as well as wondering what ever happened to some of these super talented guys who never turned into the super-stars we all thought they could be.  Anyway, take a look through time at the twelve previous Philadelphia Eagles Draft Classes.

Eagles fans, who are your favorite and least favorite draft choices of the Andy Reid Era?  My favorites were Jeremy Bloom and Cornelius Ingram.  I was so excited for both of those guys.  I still think Ingram has a bright future in the NFL.  My least favorite is between Tony Hunt and Bryan Smith.  I really wanted the Eagles to take Michael Bush the RB out of Louisville in the 3rd of 2007, I thought he was fantastic in college and suffered an unfortunate but in no way long term threatening injury and Hunt sealed the deal that they weren't going to take him.  Smith bummed me out because I really like Shawn Crable the DE/OLB out of Michigan but he went two picks earlier to the Patriots.  

I'm going to post my favorite Eagles targets for the 2011 Draft tomorrow and hopefully I'll have some new favorite Eagles Draft picks this weekend!

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