If you're not sure how you feel about the Eagles' draft, ask yourself how things went for the franchise when they kept signing veteran free agent cornerbacks.
Hint: Nnamdi. Ellis Hobbs. Bradley Fletcher. Cary Williams. Nolan Carroll. Leodis McKelvin.
The Eagles haven't won a playoff game since 2002 draft picks Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown left town -- Sheppard after the 2008 season, Brown after the 2009 season.
And it's pretty clear the Eagles' philosophy of essentially ignoring cornerback in the top rounds of the draft and patching with free agents has been a colossal failure.
"We've got to try something different," Howie Roseman said Friday night.
Enter Sidney Jones and Rasul Douglas, who the Eagles hope become this generation's Lito and Sheldon.
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The Eagles drafted Sheppard and Brown in the first and second rounds in 2002, and they combined to play 221 games in an Eagles uniform, reaching the playoffs in five of the seven years they were together.
On Friday, the Eagles picked Jones in the second round and Douglas in the third.
In the span of four hours, the Eagles matched the number of cornerbacks they drafted in the first three rounds in the previous 14 drafts. They took Curtis Marsh in the third round in 2011 and Eric Rowe in the second round 2015.
Carroll and McKelvin, last year's starting corners, are long gone, and the position is now manned by three kids -- 23-year-old Jalen Mills, who played in 16 games last year, starting two; 20-year-old Jones, who is still rehabbing after his March Achilles injury; and 21-year-old New Jersey native Douglas, who led NCAA Division 1 with eight interceptions a year ago.
The Eagles have never had three cornerbacks this young on the roster at the same time.
The closest was in 2004, when Sheppard and Dexter Wynn were 23 and Matt Ware was 22.
"Extremely competitive guys, and I think when you talk about a guy like Jalen Mills, he's got a lot of the same personality traits as these guys do," Roseman said.
"He doesn't want to back off anyone. He thinks he can cover any receiver in the National Football League, and you love to have that approach. He played at LSU, in the SEC, against top-level competition.
"And when you talk about all these guys, they bring this competitiveness, the instincts, this feel for the game that we're looking for.
"We want to build a defense and build a team that can stick together over a period of time and hopefully this is a first step toward doing that."
The wild card is Jones, who likely would have been a top-10 pick if he hadn't ruptured his Achilles at the end of his pro day workout six weeks ago.
Roseman concedes that there's a risk in selecting Jones, but based on all the medical reports the Eagles have, he believes it's a risk well worth taking.
And he makes a great point when he says the Eagles' chances of obtaining an elite corner are better taking an injured Jones at No. 43 than anybody else.
"He's not there if he's 100 percent healthy," Roseman said. "Extremely talented guy. Right up there with the top players in this draft class. Tremendous character, tremendous skill set.
"It's interesting. When you're talking about picking a guy in the second round and you start getting into percentages. What percent of guys with the 43rd pick become starers? So is anything 100 percent there? No.
"There's certainly a chance you're not getting the exact same player. But the percentages we got from our doctor were extremely high, and then when we figure out Sidney's chances of being a good players when he's healthy they're higher than anyone else you could get at that spot. …
"Sometimes you feel so good about the player you feel like it's a chance worth taking. For where we are to potentially get a No. 1 cornerback in the National Football League? We just felt like it was worth the risk for our football team."
Jones is expected to begin the season on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list, but the Eagles hope to have him on the field at some point during the season and expect him to be 100 percent or very close for the start of 2018.
He'll still only be 21 years old.
"We spent a lot of time with him and with his medical reports with our medical team, led by (team physician) Dr. (Peter) DeLuca and (trainer) Chris Peruzzi, and obviously he's got a long way to go, it's an Achilles injury.
"But we feel comfortable at this time with the research we did and we're going to do everything we can to get him back to when he was the Sidney Jones we saw play in college football and was one of the best players in college football."
The Eagles haven't had an above-average pass defense since 2008, the last time the franchise won in the postseason.
Since 2009, they've allowed the most passing touchdowns in the NFL -- 234 of them. That's 10 more than any other team. Last year, they allowed a franchise-record 27 pass plays of 30 yards or more, second-most in the NFL (one fewer than the Raiders).
Like Howie said, it was time to try something different, and that process began this weekend with the addition of defensive end Derek Barnett, whose pass pressure will presumably help the secondary, and two highly regarded young cornerbacks.
Jones and Douglas are different types of corners. Jones, when healthy, will cover the faster deep threats and Douglas will generally be assigned to the bigger wideouts.
"They have complementary skill sets," Roseman said. "And when you talk about the receivers in our division, in our conference, (you want) guys who can cover the quicker twitch receivers, and the guys who can take the big strong receivers that we face.
"Both those guys can make plays on the ball, and (defensive coordinator) Jim Schwartz is looking for competitive guys who can make plays on the ball, and that's important to get the ball back to our offense."
