Howie Roseman: Eagles don't change our draft evaluations based on need

One of the biggest mistakes that NFL teams can make in the draft is to reach for a player because he fills a position of need, drafting him higher than his talent justifies in a desperate attempt to find a Day One impact player. That's a mistake that Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman says he won't make.

So when the Eagles used their first round pick on cornerback Quinyon Mitchell, and their second-round pick on cornerback Cooper DeJean, that wasn't about thinking cornerback was a position they had to bolster. Roseman told Rich Eisen that it was simply a matter of drafting the best players on their board when the opportunity arose.

"We don't change our evaluations based on need, and I think with the way the board fell, with the offensive players going, with the quarterbacks going, it fell nicely for us," Roseman said. "We felt like we were going to sit and get a pretty good player."

Roseman said cornerback was a position the Eagles were glad to improve, but they wouldn't have done it if the right players weren't there at the right time.

"It kind of met needs and evaluations," Roseman said.

Although there was plenty of talk before the draft that the Eagles might move up in the first round, Roseman said the Eagles had 24 players with first-round grades and knew at least a few would be there with the 22nd pick, so they liked what the could get by staying put.

"It didn't make a lot of sense for us to move up and use draft capital to do it," Roseman said.