Edgerrin?

Reuben Frank has a great piece up on the 1999 Draft. He talked to Jeffrey Lurie and found out that if the Eagles hadn’t drafted Donovan McNabb, they would have gone for RB Edgerrin James. Why not the other QBs?

“We, ironically, going back, didn’t have a lot of confidence in most of the quarterbacks in that draft. And the only quarterback that we all — with Andy leading the way — felt very confident in was Donovan. And it wasn’t just his athletic ability, it was his years at Syracuse, his being able to learn a complicated offense, the way he was as a person, stable family background compared to some other quarterbacks in that draft and elsewhere, so it all came together that he was really the quarterback that was really far above all the others for us.”

So what about James?

“The answer was Edgerrin. We thought this was a potential Hall of Fame running back.”

Really interesting info. I bet Duce Staley is the happiest man in America that the Eagles took McNabb.

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4 Responses to Edgerrin?

  1. SteveH says:

    Interesting that one of the key things he talked about was stable family background. I get the feeling that there’s so much more that goes into an evaluation of a player than the public could ever know.

  2. rage114 says:

    Interesting but he didn’t sound enamored with James. My guess is that if McNabb was gone, they would have traded the pick with NO and picked up all those picks.

  3. Ross says:

    I have heard repeatedly over the years the Reid wanted McNabb but Modrak wanted Akili Smith.

    It seems likely (if true) that the developmental paths of those 2 QBs (i.e. McNabb showing constant development from rookie to 2000 and Akili Smith looking worse and worse) was one of the major components that caused Lurie to dismiss Modrak as GM in favor of letting Reid have ultimate authority in ’01.

  4. Ross says:

    d’oh… hit the back button while doing other things and then forgot I had already submitted the reply…

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