Eagles

NFL Draft Roundtable: Overall Grade For The Eagles Draft?

SportsTalkPhilly Staff Sports Editor

Published06 May 2025

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With most of the draft process in the books (UDFA and rookie minicamp are still in progress, keep up to date here), we’ve polled the Sports Talk Philly staff on a few questions regarding the draft.

We’re starting out with the question: What is your overall grade of the Eagles draft?

Paul Bowman, Managing Editor

I think I’d give this draft a B+. In my opinion, it’s tough to give a higher grade to a draft with so many boom or bust players in it. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a team that doesn’t have many roster spots really up for grabs assuming they can weed out the busts from the booms early on. My concern with the class is that if more than 3-4 of their late-round picks work out, this would seem like a draft we’re going to look back at in a few years and fans will be kicking themselves. “Remember when we drafted X and then he didn’t make final cuts before a rival team picked him up and became a superstar.” If you remember the panic of the fanbase when the team lost Casey Toohill to the roster crunch in 2020, you’ll know what I’m referring to. Toohill has been a productive NFL player, but I believe there’s five players the team selected on day three that have higher ceilings than that – and keeping them all on the roster or practice squad is going to be a major challenge.

This will be a major draft to revisit in a few years where either fans are looking at how we missed out despite so many picks or how we found multiple gems late in the draft and it’ll be another “Howie Masterclass” for talent evaluation. Campbell is the closest to a sure thing and that’s assuming there aren’t injury issues.

My criticisms of strategy: I wasn’t a fan of reaching for a safety and then trading back and seemingly losing Charles Grant for minimal gain. It seemed like trading back in the second would have been a safer option to still get their guy and would have netted more return. I didn’t mind the additional trades back to get some value, but it did seem like the Eagles might have been better served getting more future picks rather than almost all in the 2025 draft so they could use them in trades going forward to plug gaps or maneuver up the board next year.

Matt Gregan, Managing Editor

The Eagles, when they made selections and did not trade down, came away with a good crop of draft picks. Jihaad Campbell, a top-15 talent, fell into their laps at the end of the first round because of injury concerns. He has the versatility to play as both an off-ball linebacker and an edge rusher. Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio should have fun utilizing Campbell all over the defensive front. Andrew Mukuba, while being undersized, is a ball hawk who plays with immense fire and passion. He should on paper have the potential to replace the play and style of C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

Philadelphia’s draft performance started to fall off in the middle and later rounds. Howie Roseman traded back far too many times for my liking, and all for the purpose of accumulating more late-round picks? Roseman should have been aggressive in using the Eagles’ deep store of picks over the next couple years to move up in the middle of the draft. While they did make some good selections (Ty Robinson in the fourth round and Cameron Williams in the sixth), there were some missed opportunities. Bradyn Swinson, an edge rusher who recorded 13 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks last season at LSU, was drafted at pick No. 146. Adding him to the Eagles’ rotation at edge rusher would have made a lot of sense. The Eagles also failed to address the tight end position throughout the entirety of the draft. Considering the prevailing opinion about this coming season being Dallas Goedert’s last in Philadelphia, spending draft capital on a tight end would have been a smart move.

If I could separate the Eagles’ first two rounds from the rest of their draft performance, I would give the selections of Campbell and Mukuba an A while the rest of the Eagles’ draft would get a C. My overall draft grade for the Eagles would therefore come out to a B.

Mike Lipinski, Managing Editor

The Philadelphia Eagles had a solid weekend at the 2025 NFL Draft, overall, I’d give them a B+. The Jihaad Campbell pick could turn out to be some traditional Howie Roseman wizardry if the former Timber Creek High School product can stay healthy. Campbell has the ability to be a real game-changer for an Eagles defense that lost some firepower during the offseason. Heck, that seemed to be Roseman’s MO for the draft with the Birds’ first five picks coming on the defensive side of the ball. Like Campbell, second round selection S Andy Mukuba and fourth round pick DT Ty Robinson are very intriguing. The Eagles could have a nasty (nastier?) defense for the foreseeable future if these guys work out.