Howie Roseman's 2011 draft class featured top pick - and bust - Danny Watkins

Second of seven parts

In the summer of 2011, Howie Roseman sat in his office with an Inquirer reporter and watched film of Danny Watkins.

In retrospect, it's probably an interview he would have rather not given, much like the regret he would later feel after drafting the Baylor guard that spring.

"Look at how he uses his right hand to post!" Roseman raved after screening a play in which Watkins was initially beat, but recovered enough to slow an edge rusher with one hand.

Then the Eagles general manager, Roseman wasn't alone in his praise. Coach Andy Reid, who still retained final say over football operations, endorsed the selection of Watkins as did owner Jeffrey Lurie, team president Joe Banner and other coaches and scouts. But Roseman led the charge.

"Howie had this guy right from the get-go at the top," Reid said then. "I mean this was a guy that he really wanted and liked, and so when I looked at him I said, 'This guy is as fine of a football player as you have on the offensive line in this draft.' "

Roseman would later issue mea culpas for his role in taking Watkins with the 23rd overall pick. He has often referenced the mistakes made in that draft, his second as GM and the first in which he was clearly steering the ship. And there were many. But if there were lessons to learn, the most constructive came via Watkins: Don't draft 26-year-old firemen.

Philosophically, the failure of the 2011 draft also offered lessons on roster-building. The Eagles entered that offseason believing they were close to having a championship-caliber team. Quarterback Michael Vick had a rebirth the season before. The Eagles won the NFC East but lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Packers, 21-16.

"Mike comes out of nowhere, and we come a shoestring tackle away from maybe beating the eventual Super Bowl champions," Roseman said in January, "and you go into the next year, and you got this quarterback, who is a 30-plus-year-old quarterback, and guys want to come play with him, and it's like, 'Let's surround him.' "

That thinking, in essence, would later lead to the "Dream Team" fiasco, when the Eagles mistakenly spent an unprecedented amount in free agency after the NFL lockout. But it also helped to explain how they approached a draft that would, for the first time, come before free agency on the calendar.

In 2011, the Eagles seemed more intent on filling particular needs than in drafting the best prospects available. In 2010, nine of their 13 picks were defensive players, and they didn't draft a single offensive lineman.

"Howie and I both thought it was time to bring in some new guys," Reid said immediately after the 2011 draft. "And we've spent so much time on the defensive line and bringing in the young guys there that we felt it was time now to make sure we get back and fill in here with some young guys on the offensive line."

The Eagles would expend three of their 11 selections on offensive linemen - Watkins, Julian Vandervelde and Jason Kelce, a sixth-round center who would ultimately save the class from total disaster. But Reid and Roseman addressed other holes in the secondary, at linebacker, and at kicker when they drafted Alex Henery.

Before the draft, Roseman suggested that having it before free agency would allow the Eagles to stick to their board. But they were prepared to move on from kicker David Akers after he declined to sign their transition tag that March and pushed the envelope in selecting Henery in the fourth round.

"We always talk about taking the best player, and now because you have the draft first you can really stick true to that," Roseman said then. "You may normally say, 'Man, this guy is a heck of a player. But we just signed so-and-so.' Well, you can do stuff like that now."

Roseman also misread the draft in terms of its overall strength. He told reporters a week prior that the class wasn't as top heavy as in years past but had more depth. It ended up being the opposite. The first 20 or so picks produced some of the elite talents in the NFL - Cam Newton, Von Miller, A.J. Green, Patrick Peterson, Julio Jones, Tyron Smith and J.J. Watt, for example. But aside from a few anomalies, the rest of group didn't measure up.

The Eagles, thus, weren't the only team to have more busts than breakouts. The New York Giants, for instance, had a draft that started with Prince Amukamara and got progressively worse with forgettable names such as Marvin Austin, Jerrel Jernigan, James Brewer, Greg Jones and Tyler Sash.

But at least the Giants found a starter with their first pick. It's great to get value on later-round choices such as center Jason Kelce. But teams must hit in the early rounds because of the cost, both in comparison to other teams and in salary-cap implications.

After Watkins, the Eagles drafted Temple safety Jaiquawn Jarrett in the second round, cornerback Curtis Marsh in the third, and linebacker Casey Matthews and Henery in the fourth. Many analysts viewed all four selections as reaches, in particular Jarrett, who had run a slow 40-yard dash at the combine.

Reid, though, felt that his connections to Temple gave him keen insight into the safety.

"I kind of know what this kid's about," Reid said then, "and you can't find a single thing negative about this kid here."

The Eagles sold Jarrett as a Brian Dawkins-like enforcer, but he lacked the necessary speed to play in space and was out of place in the new wide-nine defensive scheme. Marsh was a converted running back out of Utah State who never ascended higher than the bottom of the depth chart even though the Eagles were thin at corner.

Matthews was a Roseman favorite despite that one of his scouts had given the Oregon linebacker a seventh-round grade. The GM had also spent an exhaustive amount of time evaluating and researching Henery. But in the end, the kicker had neither the temerity nor the leg to make it in the NFL.

Roseman also continued to make deals on draft day and procured the Kelce pick when he traded back in the third round. His restlessness - which he jokingly attributed to attention deficit disorder - could have come in handy in the first round. But the Eagles had felt as if Watkins, despite his advanced age and football inexperience, had fallen into their laps.

"He was the best available guy when we picked," Roseman said, "and it just so happened that it hit a need."

The lockout hindered Watkins' development once he got to training camp, but Reid and offensive line coach Howard Mudd knew almost immediately that Watkins was a major project. The head coach, just days after the guard's arrival at Lehigh, was lamenting to those in the front office that Watkins didn't even understand elemental instruction. The Eagles would later question the ex-fireman's devotion to the sport.

Watkins did have athleticism.

"He's got enough strength and foot quickness," Roseman said as he ran the film of Watkins back and forth in his office during the summer of 2011.

Reid had said that Watkins' performance against Miller during his senior season was a factor in their decision. But the one-handed block that so impressed Roseman came against Texas Tech outside linebacker Brian Duncan, whose football playing career had ended months earlier.

jmclane@phillynews.com

@Jeff_McLane