In all likelihood, the Eagles aren’t going to draft Ryan Tannehill because he’s not going to be available when they pick at #15. It’s looking like a near guarantee at this point that a team like the Dolphins or Browns will snap him up in the top ten.
But what if he does fall? That’s the scenario posited by Ryan Van Bibber of SBNation.com. He thinks that if Tannehill drops, the Eagles would grab him.
Andy Reid and the Eagles have spent plenty of time with Tannehill this spring. They need a quarterback learning the pro game and ready to fill the void as injuries take their toll on Michael Vick, who turns 32 this season.
While it is certainly true that the Eagles have done their due diligence on Tannehill, having sent their QB coach Doug Pederson to have a workout with him in Texas, the pick really doesn’t make a lot of sense for them.
For one, the Eagles have always been a team focused on value in the draft. They routinely move up and down in all rounds in an attempt to stockpile picks if they don’t see value or move up for a player they think has greater value than where’s fallen to.
The problem with Tannehill is that most mock drafters haven’t had him as a top 10 pick because they think he’s a top ten talent… They’ve done so because the desperation for QBs in the league has rendered value unimportant. This is why Christian Ponder and Jake Locker were top 12 picks last year. The most important thing now is getting your starting QB, not picking him where he probably belongs. Tannehill is most commonly seen as a late first/second round talent, so are the Eagles desperate enough at QB to reach on him at #15? That just doesn’t seem likely.
Plus, they’d have to be cognizant of the message they’d be sending. The message to Michael Vick is that he’s finished here almost no matter what he does next season. You simply don’t draft a QB in the top 15 to have him sit for years or to flip him for another pick. If they picked Tannehill, they’d be committing themselves to starting him in the very near future.
Given Tannehill’s middling record at Texas A&M and his lack of experience as a starter, it would not appear to be smart at all to take him at #15 this season. This is a guy who only started 19 games at QB and played WR when he first came to college. There’s just no reason to be that desperate.