After spending the first day of the draft commending Derek Barnett's character and stressing the importance of character in their players, it would have been quite a departure to draft Joe Mixon in the second around.
They passed.
Mixon, the talented running back from Oklahoma who once punched a woman and broke her jaw, was available when the Eagles took corner Sidney Jones at pick No. 43.
The Bengals took him five spots later.
Was Mixon on the Eagles' draft board? Reports surfaced both ways in the weeks leading up to the start of the draft. On Friday, Eagles VP of football operations Howie Roseman wouldn't say one way or the other on Friday, but feel free to read between the lines.
"Yeah, I don't know that we necessarily want to get into each particular player, whether they were on our board or not," Roseman said. "We have very specific guidelines for guys that we're going to select or not; we made those decisions a long time ago. I know there have been a lot of reports, and I don't know where a lot of them have come from. But we make the decisions based on the people that we want to bring into this building and the criteria we put forth."
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Last year, the Eagles took three players on Day 3 with some character concerns. With those picks they found some value. But obviously, that situation was much different than Mixon.
And throughout the process, the Eagles have said they judge every player on a case-by-case basis.
"I heard a great story in that year away and when you have young players who are some of the leaders of your football team, you want to surround them with guys who have the same personality," Roseman said to CSNPhilly, "and for us it's very important who we bring into this building and what the deal-breaker is for us, and we took that approach into the draft."
