Eagles 2011 Draft Selections: Rounds 4 – 7

The 2011 NFL Draft has come to an end. Football fans will go into withdrawal trying to recover from the megadose of football goodness they’ve received since Thursday.

For now, the fun doesn’t have to end. Here is a run down of the Eagles selections from the 3rd and final day of the draft, including comments from head coach Andy Reid on the selections, courtesy of PhiladelphiaEagles.com.

Round 4 – 19th pick in the round
Casey Matthews
LB, Oregon
6’1, 231 lbs

This pick makes my attempts at predicting the Eagles selections not entirely worthless. I had the Eagles selecting Matthews in the 3rd round. He was picked instead in the 4th, but I’m still calling it a win.

Andy Reid says:

“Inside linebacker/outside linebacker. Can play either strong side or weak side or the MIKE and I’ll get together with Juan and figure out exactly where we’ll use him … Howie and are, we’re going to sit down and go through all of that. He gave us the flexibility, I know he can step in and be your MIKE linebacker. He’s highly intelligent and he did that at Oregon in their nickel package. You saw him making all their calls all the time, so you know he can do that. At the same time, he played WILL in their base package so you got to see him do that. I have confidence he can go play whatever position out of the three that we have there.”

Round 4 – 23rd pick in the round
Alex Henery
Kicker/Punter, Nebraska
6’2, 177 lbs

The pick of a kicker may be the most talked about selection by the Birds in terms of the potential drama. Akers is 36 years old, and even if the Eagles plan to retain him in 2011 they needed to find an heir apparent.

Will Akers take Henery’s selection as a slight? Will it make him again worry about his longevity with the team? Akers’ agent, Jerrold Colton, told Jeff McLane that Akers was “taking the news in stride.”

Andy Reid says:

“Kicker/punter. We’ll just see how everything goes with our kicker and punter as time goes on, David (Akers) and Sav (Rocca). We sure are glad to have Alex aboard. He was the best in college football. At this particular time, it was hard to pass him up.”

Round 5 – 18th pick in the round
Dion Lewis
RB, Pittsburgh
5’7, 193 lbs

Andy Reid says:

“He’s the running back from Pittsburgh who really came in and broke all of (LeSean) McCoy’s records, not that McCoy wants to hear that. But they’re good friends so I say that a little bit in jest. So, we brought him in, put him in the running back mix. He can do everything for you as far as running the football and catching the football. He’s going to have to work a little bit on his pass blocking. We’ll get him coached up on that.”

Round 5 – 30th pick in the round
Julian Vandervelde
OL, Iowa
6’2, 301

Andy Reid says:

“Offensive guard/center, primarily played guard, from Iowa. We were able to add some depth here to our offensive line and some competition.”

Round 6 – #26 pick in the round
Jason Kelce
C, Cincinatti
6’3 280 lbs

Andy Reid says:

“A center. A converted linebacker to center at Cincinnati. He brings just what you would think, a tremendous amount of toughness and quickness and want-to to that position. It will be good competition at that position there.”

Round 6 – #28 pick in the round
Brian Rolle
LB, Ohio State
5’10, 229 lbs

Andy Reid says:

“An outside linebacker, predominantly weakside linebacker/nickel linebacker, from Ohio State. Brian is a rare breed man. He’s not real tall, he’s put together like no other and he makes plays all over the field. If you look at the linebackers, he’s one of the finest athletes in that group … Rolle would be considered small. What an amazing thing. For this guy to come in and start two years for Ohio State and be all-Big-Ten and that whole deal. This guy’s a heck of a football player, really fun to watch.”

Round 7 – 34th pick in the round
Greg Lloyd, Jr.
LB, Connecticut
6’1, 246 lbs

Andy Reid says:

“Inside linebacker, in our system he’ll be a MIKE linebacker. Big, physical guy from Connecticut. He’s very good inside the tackles. He was banged up last year. coming off of knee surgery, so he’s really had the year off. He’ll come in here and compete. He’ll give us tremendous competition.”

Round 7 – #7th pick in the round
Stanley Havlii
FB, USC
6’0, 227 lbs

Andy Reid says:

“Fullback from USC. He’s an all-purpose running back is really what he is. He can block, he can catch … He was the most gifted of all the fullbacks. He’s coming off of shoulder surgery, recovering from that. You’re looking at a guy that can carry the football for you, in particular he did quite a bit of it in the one-back sets that they had. In their two-back sets, he’d be a fullback that could block you and at the same time catch the football. He’ll add competition to our fullback spot.”

 

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