5 players Eagles fans should be following at the NFL Draft combine

The NFL Combine serves three purposes: It gets the front offices of teams in one city so they can do things that definitely aren’t ‘tampering’, it gives everyone something football-related to talk about, and it can either make guys in their early 20s gain or lose millions of dollars.

It’s that last part that I’m going to focus on here. It seems like every year some players test at such a wildly high or low level that it can make them go from a second-day guy to a first-day guy, or vice versa. The Philadelphia Eagles have the 32nd pick in the draft, so that change in draft stock can easily affect which guys get to make a run at the Super Bowl next year.

The combine matters to the people who matter

The most important part of the combine, player-wise, is the medical testing part. It’s super important for teams to know if a player’s body can structurally hold up. If a draft prospect doesn’t look good in the medical part of the combine, it can drop them down or wipe them off of a team’s draft board. I’m not a doctor and talking about the medical side of football is boring and lame. 

Then there’s the part where prospects meet with teams. That’s almost like a character measurement, of sorts. Sometimes those interviews get released, but for most guys, it doesn’t. We don’t get to see that stuff and it’s dumb to speculate on character.

It’s the physical tests that are sexy and also potentially very misleading. Did Anthony Richardson only play in 24 games at Florida? Yep. Did he test ludicrously well during the combine? Yep. Did the Colts draft him fourth overall in 2023? Yep. Do they regret it? Probably yep.

That’s just what happens sometimes. Teams can get fooled by a guy who hits his steps on the three-cone drill perfectly, can jump through the roof, or run so fast and powerfully that his pants explode and bits of him flop out (shout out Chris Jones).

There are guys like Jordan Davis who went to the combine, blew everyone out of the water with his 4.78-second forty-yard dash, made his draft stock shoot to the moon, and the Eagles drafted him 13th overall in the 2022 draft. So far, he hasn’t performed well enough to justify that pick.

On the other side of that, former Eagles like Zach Ertz, Jason Peters, and LeGarrette Blount did bad at the combine. Ertz slipped to the second round, and Peters and Blount went undrafted. All three of them ended up being phenomenal.

If there’s a point here, it’s that the physical tests during the combine are mostly a crapshoot… mostly. Sure, speed matters and a low 40-yard dash time is cool, but the first 10 yards are the most important because that measures explosiveness and get-off. 

The broad jump measures explosiveness as well, and you could argue the same thing about the vertical jump. The three-cone drill probably helps with some higher-level scouting stuff, so it’s got some value.

Now the bench press? Woo buddy. It’s entirely meaningless, but it rocks. Good luck trying to argue against that. 

The measurables are dumb, but sometimes they’re important to important people, and that means they matter… I think the point has been made. These are the guys that you need to keep an eye on this week because it could change their career trajectory from the literal and metaphorical jump.

Charles Grant, William and Mary, Offensive Tackle

The Eagles might be drafting Lane Johnson’s replacement soon, so tackle is a position to think about. Charles Grant is projected to go in the second or third round, and the Eagles' default draft position is at the end of each round, so he would fall right in line.

The typical offensive tackle is at least 6-4 and 300 pounds. Grant is exactly that height and weight, which means he’s on the smaller side of things. He’d probably need to test well in some of the explosive measurements and then look great in the workouts to make himself more attractive to teams. You can’t be small and weak.

Also, he missed the Senior Bowl because of an injury, so the medical evaluation will probably matter for him too.

Jihaad Campbell, Linebacker, Alabama

The Eagles don’t spend huge resources on linebackers, but one thing Howie Roseman (hopefully) learned this year is that a solid linebacker group can make a defense so so so much better. 

If the Eagles continue not spending money on linebackers and let Zack Baun walk in free agency, they’ll have an opportunity to draft a linebacker… and Jihaad Campbell could be that guy.

Not only is Campbell probably the best linebacker prospect in the draft this season, but he can also get after it as a pass rusher. Having that kind of versatility in a Vic Fangio defense would be awesome.

For the Eagles to spend significant draft capital on a linebacker, the guy will need to have a mind-blowing week. We’re talking about a real ‘freak of nature’ type performance that people talk about 10 years from now. 

All of the tight ends

If the Eagles don’t sign a tight end in free agency or trade for one, they have to draft one, right? Dallas Goedert still rocks, but he’s 30 years old and has trouble staying on the field for a full season. 

Tight ends have a whole bunch of different playing styles and things that they’re good at, and all of those things are valued differently by different teams. If there is a position group to just sit down and watch how everyone does, it would be the tight ends. 

Penn State’s Tyler Warren is the Brock Bowers-type prospect this year. So pretty much any of these other guys can be someone that the Eagles could either trade up to get or sit and wait to grab with the 32nd pick. 

Jackson Hawes, Elijah Arroyo, Harold Fannin Jr., and Gunnar Helm are some other guys who are specifically worth paying attention to, but it’ll be worth checking how every tight end measures up.

Brant Kuithe is a tight end from Utah who is pretty weird. He’s going to turn 26 years old this year (which is super old for a draftee), and that’s because he missed a bunch of time because of injuries. If the Eagles wait until late in the draft to grab a tight end, Kuithe could be the guy… if he passes the right tests.

Deone Walker, Defensive Tackle, Kentucky

Don’t freak out when you’re watching the combine. It’s going to look like the entire population of Indianapolis is five-feet tall, but that’s just because everyone looks like a pipsqueak next to Deone Walker. 

He’s 6-7 tall, and about 350 pounds. He’s a leviathan of a man. 

The thing that we’re watching out for with Walker is some of those gaudy Jordan Davis-type numbers. There’s a chance that he can challenge that kind of speed and explosiveness because he’s a monster. 

He’s the kind of guy that could jump from a second-round pick to a first-round pick if he has a good week.

Abdul Carter, Edge, Penn State

It would take a historically terrible performance at the combine for All-American Abdul Carter’s draft stock to fall to a spot where the Eagles could draft him… that being said, the guy wants to be an Eagle.

When I say ‘historically terrible,’ I’m saying that instead of running the 40, he starts doing somersaults out of the stadium. Instead of answering questions during interviews, he blows cigarette smoke in their face. Instead of doing medical tests, he pulls an Elaine Benes and uses the urine sample of a 68-year-old woman. 

If there is a hope that he could fall low enough for the Eagles to realistically trade up to get him, it would have to be something with his medicals. He had some kind of shoulder injury in the postseason but played through it. Maybe that’s a lingering thing, but it’s probably not (again, I’m not a doctor).

There’s a chance it could scare teams off, but there’s also a chance that Howie Roseman calls you to see if you want to be his protege. Those two things are equally likely.