July 19, 2017
The Eagles were fairly well represented in the MMQB's All-Time NFL Draft, which featured 12 football writers/analysts/ex-players drafting their own 25-man team (plus a coach) from a bottomless pool featuring every NFL player ever.
The goal was to essentially rank the best to ever play the game while also building a team that could win. Think of it like any other draft, where sometimes need supersedes best-available. You can head over to MMQB.com to check out all the rules an participants, but we're mainly going to focus on where the 20 players who spent at least some time with the Eagles were drafted – as well as some pretty notable names who were left off the list.
Of those 20, just one was taken in the first 80 picks. And he was drafted in the first 10 picks. Take a look:
Reggie White most certainly deserves a top-10 pick – unlike Dan Fouts' selection of Ray Guy with the fourth-overall pick. We get it, Dan. He should've been in the Hall of Fame well before 2014, but you need to come up with a better reason than, "I didn’t want to be stuck at the end of the draft without a punter because there are so few of them that are great, and in my mind Ray Guy is the best."
After White was taken, it was a long time before another Eagles player was taken. And I'm not talking about an Eagles lifer – we're including any player who has ever played in Philly, including Mike Ditka, who no one associates with the Birds.
Here's a look at where the they went, starting with a hell of an eighth-round steal in two-way player Chuck Bednarik...
81. Chuck Bednarik, C/LB | PHI (1949–62)
82. Mike Ditka, TE | CHI (1961–66); PHI ('67-68); DAL ('69-72)
83. Bob Brown, OT | PHI (1964–68), LA ('69–70); OAK ('71–73)
94. Richard Dent, DE | CHI (1983–93, '95); SF ('94); IND ('96); PHI ('97)
95. Jim Ringo, C | GB (1953–63); PHI (64–67)
126. Rayfield Wright, OT | DAL (1967–79); PHI ('80)
143. Art Monk, WR | WSH (1980–93); NYJ ('94); PHI ('95)
167. Jerome Brown, DE | PHI (1987–91)
168. Al Wistert, OT | PHI (1943–51)
191. Claude Humphrey, DE | ATL (1968–78); PHI ('79–81)
192. Maxie Baughan, LB | PHI (1960–65); LA ('66–70); WSH ('74)
222. Terrell Owens, WR | SF (1996–2003); PHI ('04-05); DAL ('06-08); BUF ('09); CIN ('10)
249. Brian Dawkins, S | PHI ('96–2008); DEN ('09–11)
262. Cris Carter, WR | PHI (1987–89); MIN ('90-2001); MIA ('02)
264. Gary Anderson, K | PIT (1982–94); PHI ('95–96); SF ('97); MIN ('98-2002), TEN ('03-04)
283. James Lofton, WR | GB (1978-86); LA ('87-88); BUF ('89-92); LA ('93); PHI ('93)
296. Sean Landeta, P | NYG (1985-93); LA/STL ('93-96, 2003-04); TB ('97); GB ('98); PHI ('99-2002, '05)
297. Darren Sproles, RB/KR/PR | SD (2005-10); NO ('11-13); PHI ('14–)
300. Steve Van Buren, RB | PHI (1944–51)
As you probably noticed, there were quite a few names missing from here, including Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Randall Cunningham, Tommy McDonald, Harold Carmichael, Tom Brookshier and many others. But when you consider that a player essentially had to be one of the best 12 to ever play his position in order to be drafted, you can't really consider them snubs. The Eagles also didn't have a coach selected during that round.
But if you want to talk about snubs, how about the fact that 19 other safeties were taken before Brian Dawkins...
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