In a chat with reporters earlier today, Eagles V.P. of player personnel Ed Marynowitz did his best to downplay talk that they could move up from No. 20 to No. 2.
“Philosophically, we are opposed to ‘mortgaging the future’ was Chip’s term,” Marynowitz said (via PhiladelphiaEagles.com). “Really, the way we look at it is draft picks — every draft pick you have is an opportunity to improve your football team. So the more opportunities we have to improve our team, we’re excited about that. So I’d rather have more picks than less picks. I think Chip shares the same philosophy. That doesn’t preclude us from moving up and doing something. I think you never say never. But, philosophically, we have eight picks and we’d like to pick eight players or more, not less.”
While we wait to see whether Marcus Mariota is in the Eagles’ plans, let’s check out some of the highlights from Marynowitz’s presser with the local media:
On how he quantifies “mortgaging the future”
I think there is an internal number on that that we’re not going to share outside the building, but we know what mortgaging the future is internally.
On how Chip Kelly defined his role upon hiring him
We just kind of had a conversation, and I just told him I’m here to support the head coach. It’s my belief in terms of our philosophy that everybody in the organization is here to support his vision. So my responsibility and my role is to do it in the player personnel area, no different than Derek’s (Eagles Director of Public Relations Derek Boyko) responsibility is to do it in the media realm. So I just told Chip that I’m here to support him and his vision. That doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with Chip. I know that’s a common thing that everybody throws out: ‘Is this guy just a yes man and do you agree?’ I’m never one to agree just to agree. To support the head coach, I don’t believe you have to tell him he’s right in everything that he says. You’re not going to disagree to disagree either. But I’ve never been afraid to voice my opinion.
Marynowitz mentioned wide receiver, corner and offensive line as three positions of strength in the draft and the Eagles lost players or released players in all three of those areas. Is that coincidence?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence. We can’t control some of the depth of the draft at each position. Certainly it’s a good opportunity that there is depth at those positions, but in terms of perceived need or what those are, again, we’re just kind of looking to acquire really good players at all spots, but we’re excited there is an opportunity.
On this year being yet another poor draft class for safeties
I think the safety position, or the traditional safety position, is a little bit of a dying breed. You don’t see as much of the true box-down safeties anymore. It’s becoming more of a pass happy, spread league and the majority of the guys with size and length are playing corner now. I mean, there is certainly an affinity for those guys to cover the big wideouts now. So a lot of those guys, especially the ones that we look for, we’re looking for guys that can cross-train and maybe play both. The way we play our safeties, we like those guys to be able to roll down and play slot coverage. In order to play man coverage, they have to have the athleticism to do that. Typically, the traditional box-safeties don’t have that.