October 31, 2015
Matt Slocum/AP
The Eagles are unlikely to draft another ILB early, but that's not going to stop me from shoehorning in a Temple player this week.
As long as you're taking in some college football games today, here are some players who could make some sense for the Eagles in the 2016 NFL Draft.
Bullard has decent sacks numbers this season (4.5 of them), but the strength of his game is as a run stuffer that the Gators like to move all over their defensive line. He actually reminds me a bit of Cedric Thornton, in that both players are dirty work-type of guys who are willing to two-gap and let other players around them make plays.
One of the Eagles' biggest team strengths (perhaps their biggest, actually) is their defensive line, so it's not as if they need to reach for a need here. However, Thornton is a free agent at the end of this season, and if the Eagles are unable to retain him, the Eagles could look to address the D line in the draft. Bullard could be a guy who falls farther than he should because of a lack of excellent production, numbers-wise like Bennie Logan did in the 2013 draft.
Seumalo's primary position is at center, where he has started since he was a freshman. In his sophomore season (2013), he moved to RT for two games after Oregon State suffered injuries along their offensive line. He broke his foot at the end of the 2013 season, which cost him the entire 2014 season, and as we've seen, Chip Kelly isn't afraid to take chances on players with injury histories.
So far in 2015, Seumalo has played RG and is expected kick out to LT today against Utah. He is a unique player who can play all five spots along the offensive line, which will absolutely appeal to the Eagles, who place a high premium on OL versatility.
At the center position for the Eagles, Jason Kelce has rare athleticism, but he has had a disappointing follow-up to his first Pro Bowl season in 2014. He tore his ACL in 2012, and he missed a chunk of last season after having surgery for a hernia. Kelce returned from both injuries in impressive fashion, so it's too early to call him injury prone, or injury-damaged.
Drafting a player to replace Kelce is out of the question, but the Eagles could certainly use a player who can play multiple positions along the offensive line, including center, seeing as they've signed or cut Julian Vandervelde 14 times in the last three years, and they lost David Molk for the season with a torn bicep.
Like Seumalo, Martin is another center-first offensive lineman who has the versatility to play multiple spots along the offensive line. Martin was the primary backup at both tackle spot his sophomore year, he started at center his junior year, and moved to LG his senior year after three games a season ago. This year, his redshirt senior season, he is back at center. Not to sound like a broken record, but the Eagles value that kind of versatility from their offensive linemen.
Martin is the younger brother of Dallas Cowboys starting RG Zack Martin, although he is not as highly regarded a prospect as the former first round pick. He serves as a captain for Notre Dame and is generally regarded as a smart player. Playing center, obviously he makes the line calls for the Irish. Those attributes should play well in the ever-important #culture column for Chip Kelly.
Here he is playing at LG vs Stanford last season. The Eagles will have to determine if they think he can thrive at guard in their scheme (which would be ideal), or if he's better suited at center (not as ideal).
OK, so the Eagles are loaded with inside linebackers, but I kind of feel the need to shoehorn a Temple player into this week's list, since the Owls are playing their first relevant game since I've been watching football. Matakevich is their best pro prospect by a mile.
Over the last four years, Matakevich has been a tackling machine. He led Temple in tackles in 2012, 2013, 2014, and so far in 2015, by a wide margin:
| Year | Matakevich tackles | Next closest Owl |
| 2012 | 101 | 75 |
| 2013 | 137 | 81 |
| 2014 | 117 | 71 |
| 2015 | 65 | 40 |
That would be 420 tackles throughout his career, and if he stays healthy, he'll probably rack up at least 100 tackles in every season of his career at Temple. On the field, Matakevich gives me a bit of a Chris Borland type of vibe, who had 420 tackles as an undersized, not-incredibly-athletic linebacker over a four-year career at Wisconsin.
Matakevich is undersized at 6'0, 232, and doesn't have Mychal Kendricks-like athleticism by any stretch. However, he is a hard-nosed hitter and the unquestioned leader of the Temple D, which has allowed just 14.6 points per game this season (8th in the nation).
Murphy is yet another intriguing OL prospect coming out of Stanford, where there have been a slew of them in recent years:
| Year | Player | Team | Round | Overall |
| 2015 | Andrus Peat | Saints | 1 | 13 |
| 2014 | Cameron Fleming | Patriots | 4 | 140 |
| 2014 | David Yankey | Vikings | 5 | 145 |
| 2012 | David DeCastro | Steelers | 1 | 24 |
| 2012 | Jonathan Martin | Dolphins | 2 | 42 |
Murphy played RT for Stanford as a junior and moved to LT this season. While Jason Peters' career winding down, Murphy could follow in the footsteps of Lane Johnson, who played both RT and LT at Oklahoma.
"Lane was a guy we always felt, because I think one of the things with Lane is he had experience," said Chip Kelly at a recent press conference. "We had Jason Peters here so we wanted someone that could be a right tackle that could eventually move to left tackle and he had experience because he played right tackle I think his junior year before he moved over to left tackle. So he had some experience.
"I think that versatility is something we were really impressed with and obviously his athleticism at that position is something you're always looking for and I think we felt that he probably had the most upside out of all those guys just because of the limited amount of time he had on the offensive side of the ball... So he really only had about 11 games with him as a left tackle but we felt with his athletic ability and his ability to jump, how explosive he was, his ability to run, that he was going to develop into a really good tackle. But the versatility was really a key part in that, too."
The Eagles could draft Murphy with the idea in mind that Johnson will move to LT whenever Peters decides to retire, and Murphy can fill right in at RT. In the short term, he could serve as a swing tackle off the bench, which the Eagles presently do not have.
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