New Eagles V.P. of player personnel Ed Marynowitz met with the media on Thursday for a pre-draft “reporters round table.” The team has supplied a transcript of the event, and it contains significant elaboration on the question of whether the Eagles will trade up from No. 20 in an effort to get quarterback Marcus Mariota.
“Philosophically, we are opposed to ‘mortgaging the future’ was Chip’s term,” Marynowitz said. “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.”
But, philosophically, Kelly sees every pick as a crapshoot. He sees Mariota as a sure thing. So how many lottery tickets would be swapped for a certainty?"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,” Marynowitz said.
But it’s not just picks that the Eagles could surrender. They also have quarterback Sam Bradford, and a three-way deal could send Bradford to Cleveland and multiple first-round picks to a team in the top five and bring Mariota to Philly.
Whatever the outcome, it seems clear that the Eagles will at least give it a try in the next week. With Bradford to dangle and with the Browns trying before on multiple occasions to get him, that could be the key to flipping No. 20 for Mariota.
