Eagles' lack of young talent glaring in ESPN ranking

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Back in May, I wrote about the Eagles’ alarming lack of young talent. I ranked the Eagles’ top-10 players under 25 and as you can see the list drops off quickly once you get past Miles Sanders at No. 1.

The Eagles have reached the playoffs the last three years and won a Super Bowl in 2017 with a veteran roster, but Howie Roseman went to great lengths this offseason to re-stock the roster with talented young players. But just about every one of them comes with a giant question mark. 

People have noticed.

ESPN on Monday released an analytics-driven ranking of the under-25 talent on each of the 32 NFL teams, and the Eagles finished 29th, ahead of only the Vikings in 30th, the Patriots in 31st and the Falcons in 32nd.

The No. 29 ranking is actually an improvement over last year’s No. 32 ranking.

And while the analysis was flawed in one way and kind of ridiculous in another, the piece does correctly illustrate the concerning absence of proven young talent on the Eagles’ roster.

One absurdity in the ESPN piece: The Eagles are one of three teams listed with no so-called “blue-chip” players under 25.

Last we checked, Sanders is 23.

Sanders led all NFL rookies last year with 1,327 scrimmage yards, was 9th in the NFL in rushing average and had the 12th-most catches of all NFL running backs yet wasn’t one of 79 players listed as a blue-chipper.

That’s just silly.

Another absurdity: In explaining why the Eagles improved from 32nd to 29th, the piece credits the Eagles’ success with players drafted in “later rounds” of the draft and uses Sidney Jones as an example. But Jones was a 2nd-round pick and played more than 3 snaps in only two of the Eagles’ last nine games.

But despite the piece’s flaws, it does correctly highlight a general lack of young, proven talent on the roster.

As of now, the Eagles have only four slam-dunk projected under-25 starters: Sanders along with Andre Dillard, Derek Barnett and Avonte Maddox, who are all 24. T.J. Edwards, who is 24, is a likely starter, and either 23-year-old J.J. Arcega-Whiteside or 21-year-old Jalen Reagor will likely start as well.

For the sake of comparison, the Giants rank second in the ESPN piece after being No. 5 last year. They are listed with five “blue-chip” players under 25 (Will Hernandez, Saquon Barkley, Daniel Jones, Dexter Lawrence and Andrew Thomas). 

Washington is No. 11 with five blue-chippers (Chase Young, Montez Sweat, Daron Payne, Dwayne Haskins, Terry McLaurin).

And the Cowboys are No. 24 with four blue-chippers (Leighton Vander Esch, Connor Williams, Michael Gallup, CeeDee Lamb).

The five teams with the most under-25 talent according to the piece are the Ravens, Giants, Cards, Bills and 49ers.

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