Eagles Ranked 11 In Post-Draft Power Rankings
By Ray Boyd
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- There is still a lot of time to figure out what the Eagles roster is going to look like when the 2015 football season begins. However, it is always fun to take a look at where the national media sees Chip Kelly's bunch at the moment.
According to ESPN's latest power rankings, the Eagles are the 11th best team in football following the draft.
That moves the Eagles up one spot in the ESPN rankings from where they finished at the end of last season.
The new rankings referenced the fact that the Eagles were one of the worst teams in the NFL in defending the pass, especially when it came to giving up passing touchdowns.
Kelly and the Eagles have certainly addressed that area this off-season with the free agent signings of cornerbacks Byron Maxwell and Walter Thurmond. The team also used their second round draft pick on cornerback Eric Rowe out of Utah.
The Eagles did not add a significant proven safety to the group to play alongside Malcolm Jenkins, but Rowe does have extensive experience in college at safety. The team will also look to Earl Wolff to step up in his third season and grab a position that Kelly has made clear is up for grabs.
The rest of the Eagles roster is very hard to forecast. The Eagles let go of a lot of significant players, but acquired some players that are of similar caliber if not better. The key factor will be how will all of these new pieces mesh together.
In a perfect world, Sam Bradford is healthy for 16 games and is better than Nick Foles from a season ago. The tandem of DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews would be more productive than LeSean McCoy and Darren Sproles would still be the swiss army knife capable of hurting opponents in multiple ways.
Nelson Agholor would be the perfect replacement for Jeremy Maclin and would be ready to step in day one as the Eagles' primary wide receiver target. Kiko Alonso would return to form following injury as a top inside linebacker and the front seven would continue their growth and productive play led by Fletcher Cox.
That is the perfect scenario. The perfect scenario often does not happen.
Every team listed ahead of the Eagles in the new power rankings was a playoff team a season ago. The rankings also placed the Super Bowl champion Patriots as the second best team in the league to the runner-up Seahawks.
