you can never have enough good corners and good pass rushers

“The league is set up to be a bell curve, and sometimes if you want to be outside that bell curve on the positive, you’re going to take some chances,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman says. “And you’ve got to be right a lot more than you’re going to be wrong.”

There tends to be a pattern when the cost of certain NFL positions begins to fluctuate: When players in one role start to become expensive, so do their counterparts on the other side of the ball. When the price of offensive tackles surged due to their key role in protecting quarterbacks, so did the cost of edge rushers who were athletic enough to beat them and pulverize passers anyway.

At the other end of the spectrum, as running backs became less important, defensive players whose primary skill was stopping the rush were deprioritized, too.

The latest position to skyrocket has been wide receivers, with a slew of players signing contracts worth over $30 million annually last offseason. That meant it was only inevitable that the value of high-end cornerbacks capable of stopping them would eventually follow.

The Eagles didn’t sit still waiting for that market correction. By drafting both Mitchell and DeJean, they added two talented cornerbacks who will be on cheap rookie deals right as other top players at their position begin to command enormous paydays.

The matter was all the more urgent for the Eagles, considering how they finished last season. When Philadelphia collapsed by going 1-6 over its final seven games, the team’s defense was a sieve. It gave up 30.6 points per game over that span. Drastic measures were required.