Eagles said they would draft for volume, but traded up instead

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Heading into the draft, the Eagles said their priority was drafting a lot of good players, not just identifying a few.

“We believe in volume,” Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said last month. “We’re not cocky enough to feel that you’re going to draft way better than anybody else, and it’s very important to create volume. This draft we’re going to have good volume.”

But while General Manager Howie Roseman said before the draft that he agreed with that, once the draft actually started, the Eagles took a different approach: Philadelphia traded up in the first round, and ended up making only five picks, second-fewest in the league.

In the first round, the Eagles gave up their fourth-round pick and their sixth-round pick to move up from No. 25 to No. 22 and select Washington State offensive tackle Andre Dillard. Far from trading down to get more picks, the Eagles traded up or stood pat.

Whether Dillard turns out to be a good enough player to make trading up for him wise remains to be seen, but the Eagles clearly diverted from the path they said they were setting out on. And it was the same last year, when the Eagles also made only five picks. Far from drafting for volume, the Eagles’ 10 picks over the last two drafts are the fewest of any team in the NFL. Next year the Eagles are expected to get third- and fourth-round compensatory picks and may be back in the volume game, but for the last two years their actual draft strategy has not matched their public proclamations.