The Philadelphia Eagles 2024 season is over and it ended as perfectly as you could hope. The NFL doesn't sleep, so, whenever you're ready, it's time to start thinking about the 2025 season; it’s time for draft talk.
There are going to be some holes in the Eagles’ roster after free agency, and they’ll be looking to replace some guys. Luckily, this draft, in particular, is going pretty strong in the areas they could use the help.
Anticipating Howie Roseman’s draft-day moves is a hard thing to do
It’s almost impossible to predict what the Eagles will do in the draft. Going into the 2024 draft, it felt like it was almost a sure thing that Howie Roseman would trade up from the 22nd overall pick. Instead, he stayed there and grabbed Quinyon Mitchell, who ended up having a (snubbed) defensive rookie of the year caliber season. So, will Howie stay and pick at 31? Maybe. Will he move up? Maybe. No one knows but Howie.
That being said, there are certainly picks that they can make if they sit and pick. In the first three rounds, they’ll probably draft Lane Johnson’s future replacement at right tackle, a defensive end, and Dallas Goedert’s replacement at tight end. So let’s look at three guys who might be available for those spots.
First Round: Cameron Williams, Right Tackle, Texas
Cameron Williams is six feet and five inches tall and 335 pounds. He’s 21 years old, and he was the starting right tackle at the University of Texas in 2024. That’s the thing—he’s only had one year as a starting right tackle.… also his name is kind of boring.
He might be a guy that the Howie would have to trade up for, but he would thrive with the Eagles. Lane Johnson is going to play for another year or two which is important because if Cameron was drafted to be a day-one starter, he’d have a tough time since he doesn’t have an enormous amount of experience.
He’s the kind of guy who would need to be a backup for a year or two. A future hall-of-famer like Lane Johnson and an offensive line coach like Jeff Stoutland would be able to clean up some of his sloppiness.
Cameron’s a chonky dude with a monster frame, and he can move. For a team like the Eagles that asks their offensive linemen to do a lot of things in the run game, that’ll be pretty important.
Round two: Princely Umanmielen, EDGE, Ole Miss
Dallas Goedert, Miles Sanders, Jalen Hurts, Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens, and Cooper DeJean were the Eagles’ last six second-round picks. Howie Roseman nails these picks, and these guys end up becoming some of the most important people in our lives. Princely Umanmielen could be the next guy, which would be great because he has a great name. Princely (pronounced how it looks) Umanmielen (OO-mahn-me-ellen). That’s fantastic.
Princely is six feet and four inches tall and 260-ish pounds. He’ll be 23 years old at the draft, and he was a 2023 and 2024 All-SEC defensive end.
He spent the first three years of his college career at the University of Florida and the last two years at Ole Miss. Players who have five years of playing experience in college are normally older than 23 years old, so that’s kind of nice.
He’s long and fast, and he can win pass rushes in a few different ways. You could probably blast him for low effort at times, but being in the Eagles locker room and being in Philadelphia will either change that or break him.
Round three: Harold Fannin Jr., Tight End, Bowling Green
The Eagles drafted Zach Ertz to be Brent Celek’s replacement when Celek was 28 years old. Dallas Goedert was drafted to be Zach Ertz’s replacement when Ertz was 28 years old. Dallas Goedert is 30 years old right now, and the Eagles are probably going to draft his replacement (to be fair, I’ve been saying that for the last two years and it hasn’t happened yet).
Harold Fannin Jr. is six feet and four inches tall and 230 pounds. He’s only 20 years old, and he was the 2024 Consensus All-American tight end.
It’s important to the Eagles that their tight ends be a part of the running game, and Fannin can do that, but he’s not great at it. His size is a little bit of a hindrance there, so he won’t be an immediate threat to defensive linemen (specifically the defensive ends).
In the passing game, he’s pretty good. He hardly ever drops the ball, and he’s fast. He’ll be good at making a guy miss after he catches the ball, so he’d slide in really well to the Dallas Goedert role in that respect. He’s not nearly as physical as Goedert so it might take a minute to see him get some of those angry runs that Dallas has, but they could be there.
There are guys there that the Eagles can get if they stay where their picks are. There’s approximately a 0.000001% chance that they do that, but just keep an eye out on Williams, Umanmielen, and Fannin. They could be very important people in our lives in the near future.