It’s NFL Draft season, so now seems like a good time to re-visit Eagles GM Howie Roseman's hour-long chat with Jason Kelce on his New Heights podcast late last month, when Kelce wanted to look back at when HE was drafted way back in 2011.
Jason Kelce was the No. 191 overall pick in the sixth round, the fourth of six players listed as centers to be selected that year – including a rare first-rounder in Florida’s Mike Pouncey, who went 15th to Miami.
Roseman was in his second year as GM and the team was in the tail end of the Andy Reid era, with Reid still wielding personnel control, and Kelce was the third lineman selected out of the Eagles’ eight picks to that point. And 12 years later, he wanted to know why.
“What was my scouting report? What made you guys draft me? How many draft boards was I taken off of the moment I weighed 280 pounds (at the Combine)?” Kelce asked.
“I think it was that plus the combination of intense anger that you wanted to beat the (crap) out of everyone within five miles from you at the time,” Roseman shot back. “(That) was at least the reputation.”
Kelce could only muster a meek “yeah,” remembering how his reputation and Cincinnati’s status as a not-yet-there program hurt his draft stock – yet Howie actually wanted him sooner.
“I do remember in the draft room, (scouts) were going, ‘I’m just telling you, he might fight half the team, and he really likes to party,’” Roseman said. “But we had you in the fourth round.”
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Roseman had faith that Kelce had something special, even if it took a couple rounds more than he wanted to snag a player that would be a cornerstone of half of the Eagles’ NFC Championship Teams to date.
“Honestly, I’m embarrassed we had you in the fourth round because you’re thinking, ‘1st-ballot Hall of Famer, and we had you in the fourth round?' So we were wrong about that,” Roseman said. “But at that time, nobody really looked like you. You were a converted linebacker, and we liked you, but at the same time, we knew you were kind of off half the boards in the league so we were totally excited to get you and draft you there.”
The man who pushed Kelce back up the Eagles’ board? Howard Mudd, who had just taken over as offensive line coach and had a different philosophy from OL coach turned defensive coordinator Juan Castillo.
“Howard is somebody who really helped me with evaluating offensive linemen. We had Juan, and then Howard came in and it was totally different,” Roseman said. “With Juan, we were looking for size and length and power, and Howard said he didn’t want any of that. And so what we really had to do was we had to watch guys together, and for us it changed from that to explosiveness, athleticism, instincts, vision on the field. You have elite vision. I had never thought of offensive linemen like that.”
Jamaal Jackson was the Eagles’ center at the time, a stalwart for four years before suffering a season-ending injury in Week 1 of 2010 – but as it turns out, once Kelce got to camp, that was the end of Jackson’s run. Kelce took over as starter, Jackson played all 16 games as a reserve lineman before being released at the end of the year…and the rest is Hall of Fame history.
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“We were two weeks into practice, and I’m on the side of the cafeteria, and (Mudd) grabs me, and he says, ‘He’s starting,’” Roseman said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, it would probably be hard to start a rookie center the first two games in domes when we haven’t had an offseason program,’ and he’s like, “Don’t even start with me. He’s starting Week 1. This guy is going to be the captain of your team and your best player.’”
Indeed, he has become that, starting 188 of 206 games for the Birds since 2011 and becoming a five-time All-Pro – accolades only four centers, two Eagles, and one sixth-round pick (you may have heard of a man named Brady?) have ever matched.
And it all started with a new coach, a new philosophy, and support from the boss, who unbeknownst at the time had just two years left in town.
“You really were a good player right away,” Roseman said. “It didn’t take you long. There was no transition. And I give Coach Reid a lot of credit, too, because Coach Reid was like, ‘Yeah, we’re freaking playing him.’ Total trust in Howard. But that started a new way of how we drafted offensive linemen.”
The other two OL the Birds drafted that year? First-rounder Danny Watkins, who spent most of 2011-12 as the starter at right guard but was out of the league after 2013, and fifth-rounder Julian Vandervelde, who holds the NFL record for being released 21 times, and played 18 games over parts of five seasons with the Eagles and Bucs.
Over the next eight years, the Eagles drafted a total of eight offensive linemen, and after years of the Watkins’ and Vanderveldes of the world, they got a lot of those right – three of those players (Lane Johnson, Isaac Seumalo and Jordan Mailata) were starters last year, three (Andre Dillard, Matt Pryor, and Halapoulivaati Vaitai) played key reserve roles over the years, and Dennis Kelly lasted just three years in Philly but has carved out a 10-year career as a swing tackle.
Of course, 2012 sixth-rounder Brandon Washington (13 NFL games, all with the Rams in 2013) is the exception that proves the rule, but Kelce set the Eagles down a path to positional history.
“Having guys on offense who were elite athletes to match up with our skill position guys, and really when you see what’s gone on in the league, Howard was ahead of it,” Roseman said. “I’d like to say me and Coach Reid were, but really you have to give him credit. Because the league wasn’t really there. They just wanted size.”
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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