Why the Eagles Drafted Someone Who’s Never Played Organized Football Before

Howie Roseman joined The Rich Eisen Show fresh off another draft weekend, and the Eagles GM walked through two of the more unconventional moves on his board: a quick free-agency pivot for defensive lineman Jonathan Gilliard and a late-round swing on a player who has never taken a snap of organized football.

The Gilliard story started with loss. Philadelphia watched a defensive starter walk during the three-day negotiation window, the same player Roseman called "a good player" who had real success the previous year. The defense already had Reek manning the other corner spot, and Roseman felt the unit was in a good place, but he kept circling back to one principle: the Eagles win up front.

"Our bread and butter is our O-line and D-line," Roseman told Rich.

Gilliard checked every box. Power. Athleticism. Motor. A captain on his Vikings team. And, with a wink Rich caught immediately, a former Florida Gator. Roseman compared the addition to the turbo button on a video game his son plays. The Eagles had Gilliard. They hit turbo.

Then came the swing. With the 251st pick, Philadelphia took Ugo Amadi Bernard out of the International Pathway Program, a defensive lineman from Nigeria with the height-and-speed comparable to Myles Garrett. Rich confirmed the part that sounds impossible. The player has never played a snap of organized football.

Facts, Roseman said.

The Eagles have done this before. Jordan Mailata came through the same pathway from rugby and turned into a world champion, an All-Pro, and, by Roseman's account, one of the best human beings in the building. But Roseman was careful not to lean on that comparison.

"For us to sit there and say we took this player and we're going to get the same results, that would be naive, for sure," he said.

The homework, though, was real. The Eagles sent position coach Clint Hurdle to work with Bernard in person. Roseman wanted somebody he trusted to put hands on the prospect, the same play they ran with Mailata. Hurdle came back convinced. Unusual power. Unusual athleticism. A willingness to learn.

Roseman framed the decision the way he frames a lot of his swings, by inverting the question. He said he often asks himself not how he will feel if a move works, but how he will feel if he passes and watches the player land somewhere else. In Bernard's case, he wanted the result, whatever it turned out to be, to belong to the Eagles.

"If it works, obviously I want that benefit for our football team," Roseman said. "But even if it didn't work, I wouldn't have any regrets, because I feel like it was something that we wanted to try and try to develop."

The Mailata comp does end at one point. Rich noted that Mailata can sing. Roseman, who has spoken with Bernard a few times, was honest about the new project's vocal range.

"Not feeling that from him," Roseman said with a laugh. "Not getting the sense that's an area he's going to thrive."