Paul Domowitch: Birds' late-round woes not unusual

WHEN THE Eagles were awarded a pair of compensatory seventh-round draft picks at the league meetings in Orlando last month, coach Andy Reid and general manager Howie Roseman didn't sprint to the hotel bar and order a bottle of Dom Perignon to celebrate the occasion.

While they were certainly happy to add some more ammunition for this week's draft - they currently have 10 selections, including five of the first 87 picks, after sending a fifth-round pick to Detroit yesterday in the Ernie Sims deal - they also were aware that those two seventh-round bullets, as well as their one sixth-round pick, probably are going to end up being blanks.

Of the 29 players the Eagles have selected in the sixth and seventh rounds of their 11 drafts in the Andy Reid era, just two have started more than four games for the team. Both of those players - fullback Cecil Martin and tight end Jed Weaver - were products of Reid's first draft with the Eagles. Since 2000, they have drafted 25 players in the sixth and seventh rounds. The total production from those 25 picks in an Eagles uniform: 118 games played and 10 starts. Fourteen of those 25 picks never played a game for the Eagles.

To be fair, the Eagles hardly are alone when it comes to late-round swings-and-misses. Evaluating football flesh is an inexact science at the top of the draft. Down below, in the sixth and seventh rounds, it's a crapshoot.

For every Tom Brady (sixth round, 2000), there are dozens of Andy Halls and Daven Hollys. For every Marques Colston (seventh round, 2006), there is busload of Craig Braggs and Taco Wallaces.

"You can never count on a sixth- or seventh-round pick," said Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who probably has as good a late-round batting average as anybody in the league (Brady, David Givens, Tully Banta-Cain) and still is well below the Mendoza line.

"That late, you're just hoping you can find someone who can contribute to your team. You just hope you have a guy who can make the team, or for that matter, your practice squad. Some work out, some don't. We've had sixth- and seventh-round guys who have never made it on the field for a practice. If they were more sure things, they would have been third- or fourth-round picks."

The Eagles actually have had a lot more success with undrafted free agents than they have had with late-round picks. Safety Quintin Mikell, center Jamaal Jackson, linebacker Akeem Jordan and offensive lineman Nick Cole all were signed as undrafted free agents. Collectively, they have played in 280 games for the Eagles and have started 154.

The 29 players the Eagles have taken in the sixth and seventh rounds since 1999 have played in a total of 197 games for the Eagles and have started just 59. That includes 39 starts by Martin and 10 by Weaver.

The best late-round pick by the Eagles in the Reid era never played a game for the team. That was Temple defensive lineman Raheem Brock. The Eagles took him in the seventh round of the 2002 draft, then ended up relinquishing his draft rights when he wouldn't take a smaller signing bonus to help them with what they felt was a too-small rookie-pool allotment.

Brock ended up signing with the Indianapolis Colts and started 104 games for them before his release after last season. Was a key member of their 2006 NFL championship team.

Despite the Eagles' lack of success in the later rounds, Roseman said the organization does not lower the expectation bar in those rounds.

"When we go into every round of the draft, we want to find a starter," he said. "There's no pick that we pick where we're thinking, 'You know what? Maybe this guy will be a good backup.' We want to find starters. Now, the odds say that's just not realistic. You're not going to find starters in every round. But that's our attitude. We don't want to take a player where, when we pick him, we're thinking the upside on this guy is that he'll be a backup."

The Eagles actually have done a much better job with their late-round picks the last 2 years. The seven players they selected in the sixth and seventh rounds of the 2008 and '09 drafts have played in 74 NFL games and made 11 starts, though 35 of those games played and six of those starts have been with other teams.

Moise Fokou, the second of the Eagles' two seventh-round picks last year, started four games last year at strongside linebacker. Linebacker Joe Mays (sixth round, 2008) was one of the team's best special-teams players the second half of last season.

Wide receiver Brandon Gibson (sixth round, 2009) was traded to St. Louis in the Will Witherspoon deal and started four games and caught 34 passes for the Rams last season. Linebacker Andy Studebaker (sixth round, 2008) and guards Mike Gibson (sixth round, '08) and Paul Fanaika (seventh round, '09) all were signed off the Eagles' practice squad by other teams. Studebaker, signed by the Chiefs, was one of their top special-teams players last year and had two interceptions in two starts.

"When we looked at Moise last year, it's hard to find SAM linebackers," Roseman said. "A lot of times, those are college defensive ends that you've got to move back and you're projecting them, like we did with Chris [Gocong]. But Moise was a guy who was a SAM linebacker in college. He had some of the specifics we look for at that position.

"To say you're in the seventh round and you know for sure he's going to be a starter, no, no way you can say that, or you wouldn't let him slip into that round. But he had enough things going for him, positive things - the way he played, his motor, his length, his athletic ability - that we felt he had a chance [to be an eventual starter at SAM]. He did a helluva job as a rookie, and hopefully, he'll take another big step here this season."

Typically, a large percentage of the players selected in the sixth and seventh rounds are linebackers, defensive backs and tight ends, which just happen to be the positions that produce most of a team's core special-teams players.

"You're looking for a guy who's going to contribute as a core special-teams guy with a chance to develop as a backup, and maybe have the potential to one day be a starter," NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said. "That's the predominant group.

"After that it's, do we have a need that we haven't hit yet? And is there a kid who's really talented that maybe wasn't as productive [in college]? Maybe there's a small-school corner you don't know much about, but geez, he's got some intriguing quickness and speed. So you get into those rounds and a lot of those picks may be need-based because you figure if you miss on them you miss on them."

That was the case 2 years ago when the Eagles decided to take a flier on underachieving offensive tackle King Dunlap in the seventh round. The Auburn product is a looks-like-Tarzan-plays-like-Jane type. At 6-8 and 310 pounds, he was a projected early round pick before his senior year. Then he went out and played poorly and was benched and slid into the seventh round.

"He struggled his senior year, but we saw the ability was there to be a starter in the NFL at an important position," Roseman said. "So, instead of taking a guy that we thought maybe would be a good special-teamer and backup, you take a chance on a guy like Dunlap and maybe buy into the upside.

"When you look around the league at successful later-round picks, maybe there was something there. Maybe they were hurt their senior year and were banged up and weren't as productive. Maybe they were smaller-school guys like Studebaker [Division III Wheaton College]. At every point in the draft, there are going to be good players. It's our job to try and find them."

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