The Eagles traded up in front of Dallas in Dallas to take a tight end named Dallas.
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The Eagles came into Friday’s second round with the No. 52 pick but traded with the Colts to get into spot 49, just in front of the Cowboys, and selected tight end Dallas Goedert (GOD-ert) from South Dakota State.
In order to move up three spots, the Eagles had to give up the No. 169 pick (fifth round).
“He was among the players we had grouped at 32, so we wanted to make sure that we got one of those guys,” Eagles vice president of football operations Howie Roseman said. “And that’s why we made the move up.”
When the Eagles traded out of the first round on Thursday night, Roseman felt confident that the Eagles would be able to get a comparable talent with the 52nd pick, 20 spots later. But as the second round progressed, the Eagles saw names they liked come off the board.
During the day on Friday, the Eagles’ brass had conversations about the possibility of moving back up if it didn’t look like one of their guys was going to make it to 52. That's what happened.
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“We didn’t have a lot of picks and we didn’t want to go into anything next year,” Roseman said of the 2019 draft, when the Eagles already have nine selections. “We didn’t want to give up something if we didn’t have to, but at the same token, once guys started to go on our list of guys we were considering at 32, we wanted to make sure we came out with someone we feel really good about. That’s why we made the move here to go get Dallas.”
The Cowboys took tackle Connor Williams from Texas with the next pick at 50, but it would have made sense if they wanted Goedert. Earlier in the day, it was reported that veteran Jason Witten is retiring after a tremendous career in North Texas.
When asked if that was part of the reason the Eagles jumped the Cowboys, Roseman said they were just concerned about getting one of the guys they once targeted at 32.
After moving their fifth-round pick, the Eagles have four more selections for Saturday: two in the fourth round (125, 130), one in the sixth (206) and one in the seventh (250).
Goedert (6-5, 260) finished his college career with back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons in college. Personnel head Joe Douglas seemed impressed with Goedert’s college tape and his performance at the Senior Bowl.
“Dallas is a blue-collar kid who works extremely hard,” Douglas said. “This was a guy we felt dominated at that level of play.”
Goedert, 23, is the first tight end the Eagles have drafted since Zach Ertz in the second round of the 2013 draft. Goedert will help fill the void left after Trey Burton went to the Bears in free agency and after the Eagles cut Brent Celek.
Head coach Doug Pederson said the Eagles will bring Goedert along slowly in his complex offense but expects his new tight end to fill some of the void left by Burton. Roseman said Pederson was thrilled about the pick.
“I think you saw in our draft room, we were excited about it. That’s part of this moment. We sat down this week and just tried to make a list of guys we’d be excited to get. We want to come down after every pick and be excited to get him. That’s always the focus of when we go into these days. Excited from a front office/scouting perspective, from a coaching perspective. When you get that, you feel really good about it.