Will the Eagles draft Dallas Goedert's replacement next week?
Will the Eagles draft Dallas Goedert's replacement next week? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
As the Eagles prepare for the 2025 NFL Draft, the situation with Dallas Goedert still feels unsettled as the veteran tight end enters the final year of his contract.
But that situation won't affect the Eagles' strategy in next week's draft.
The way we look at the draft is it's a separate entity to anything else that's going on," Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said during a pre-draft press conference on Tuesday. We've got to make good decisions in the draft based on who the players are that are available in the draft. We can't make up any positions and make them better than they're not. We have to really have a true process.
So, it really doesn't affect us. We try to do as much as we can at any position in free agency to try to make sure that we're not in a position where there are needs. Of course, we're not a perfect team and there's always going to be areas that we're looking to improve, and honestly, that's going to happen even the day after the draft. We're going to continue to have areas that when we look at our depth chart, we'll go, Man, it would be great to add a player here.' The player acquisition period is a huge part of it, but it's certainly not the end."
If you haven't been following the situation with Goedert, here it is in a nutshell:
He is entering the final year of his contract in 2025 and is set to earn over $14 million. Paying that much to an aging player definitely doesn't jibe with the rest of the Eagles' offseason, so if Goedert is going to be back, it would likely come with a pay cut. The Eagles have been open to the idea of trading their veteran tight end. Goedert is 30 now and has struggled to stay healthy in his career but he's still a good player when on the field and had a big postseason in 2024 that helped the Eagles win Super Bowl LIX. There's no question they're a better team with him than without him.
But a few weeks ago at the NFL owners meetings, Roseman and head coach Nick Sirianni didn't do anything to quell the notion that Goedert might not be back in 2025. This offseason, the Eagles also signed a couple of bargain-bin veterans at tight end (Harrison Bryant and Kylen Granson) and they still have Grant Calcaterra and E.J. Jenkins the roster. The Eagles tried to make sure they filled the need with a couple veterans to avoid a reach, but it might be time to draft Goedert's replacement.
And it might be time to draft Goedert's replacement whether or not he's still on the roster in 2025.
During his 14 drafts as Eagles general manager, Roseman has selected 114 players and just four of them have been tight ends: Clay Harbor in the 4th round in 2010, Zach Ertz in the 2nd round in 2013, Goedert in the 2nd round in 2018 and Calcaterra in the 6th round in 2022. Roseman has drafted fewer tight ends than any other position during his time as GM.
While Roseman tries to steer clear of speaking in generalities about the strength of any draft class based on position - he has been burned by that before - several top draft analysts have said this is a good and deep class for tight ends.
It's got to be based on the board that we have and the value in the draft and we will stack it based on not needs, but based on the value of the players in this draft and this class," Roseman said on Tuesday.
Certainly when we talk about how the class looks, it all depends on who's there when you're picking. So we've been in situations where we think it's a really good class at a certain position and then when we're picking, it just hasn't worked out that the caliber players met the value of the pick. So I think that that's how we kind of judge the class is wherever we're picking, what's the caliber of player at that point in time."
The top two tight ends in this draft class are Tyler Warren from Penn State and Colston Loveland from Michigan - both are expected to be selected in the first round way before the Eagles pick at 32. Because of that, the value probably won't line up for the Eagles to draft a tight end in the first round.
But second round? Third? Those options are definitely on the table and there's a chance the Eagles will find a good one.
The Athletic's Dane Brugler has five tight ends in that Round 2-3 range: Mason Taylor from LSU, Elijah Arroyo from Miami, Terrance Ferguson from Oregon, Harold Fannin Jr. from Bowling Green and Gunnar Helm from Texas. The Eagles have picks 64 and 96 on Day 2.
Sirianni on Tuesday gave a long answer when asked about what he looks for when scouting tight ends. He made the point that he views the tight end room like the receiver room in that you want to have a bunch of different skills collected but you can mix and match to get there - one player doesn't have to have them all.
Aside from looking for big, strong, fast, physical and tough" players - which pretty much describes what Sirianni looks for in just about every position - when he looks at tight ends, the first thing Sirianni looks at is the players targets in the receiving game. And then he goes from there.
So again, you're just trying to fill all the spots that you would use for a tight end," Sirianni said, but then sometimes you get a tight end that is unique and you haven't used certain things with that tight end before, but you're like, Well, this guy can do some receiver stuff or running back stuff,' or whatever it is.
Our job as coaches is to take the players that we have, the talented players that we have and find ways that make it work. But naturally, I always will start with their targets and the things that, the balls that went their way throughout a game. ...
Looking for a lot of different things, but I'm always looking for a guy that can make plays with the ball in his hand and then have the ability to first of all be a factor in the run game and helping you out in the run game, which is one of the harder matchups in the NFL, right? A defensive end vs. a tight end, and there's other ways around that and then not being a liability in the run game."