Howie Roseman

This is a post by Les Bowen on Eagletarian, the Daily News' Eagles blog.   FINALLY, IT'S draft week. Turns out, when your team finishes 4-12 and has a chance to draft fourth, its fan base starts obsessing over that choice, oh, a couple weeks before the season ends. Especially when that fan base is prone to obsessing, in general. So, we're only 4 months into the obsessing. Which is roughly the length of an entire NFL season. People were asking me who the Eagles were going to get in the first round before they'd even hired a coach, which I tried to gently suggest might be somewhat integral to the process of deciding which guy to take.

When Dee Milliner ran the 40-yard dash in 4.37 seconds in February, he appeared to cement his status as a top-10 pick in the NFL draft. Though widely considered the top cornerback prospect, Milliner entered the NFL combine with questions about his speed. "Just watch the combine," he boldly told reporters in Indianapolis a few days before he was to run. "I know my body. I know what I can do and how I can run," Milliner said recently during a phone interview. "So I just knew I could go out there and produce.

There are times to wheel and deal, to treat a top-five draft choice as an asset to be auctioned off. For the Eagles, this is not one of those times. There is little doubt, based on recent history, that general manager Howie Roseman could spin the fourth pick in Thursday's NFL draft into half the fifth round, were he so inclined. And yes, by turning one high pick into a handful of lower picks, Roseman could improve his chances of hitting on a later-round gem. There is logic to that approach.

The first draft prospect Eagles coach Chip Kelly named last week was Dion Jordan. The mention came unprompted in reference to the unknown of the draft. Kelly's point was that Jordan, an elite pass rusher who played for Kelly at Oregon, was recruited as a wide receiver and was not one of the nation's top recruits. "Now he's going to play outside linebacker defensive end in the NFL," said Kelly, who called Jordan "one of the top players out there. " The reference was not random.

If there is an ideal candidate for the Eagles to draft with the No. 4 overall pick, it just might be Eric Fisher. The Central Michigan tackle may be as close as there is in this draft to a "can't-miss" prospect. He fills an immediate need for the Eagles on the offensive line, and he projects as the eventual heir at left tackle, one that could anchor the unit for 10 years. It sounds almost too good to be true. In fact, Fisher may be too good for it to be true. Once given a mid-first-round grade by analysts, Fisher catapulted into the top 10 after a Senior Bowl performance that quelled concerns about his having played in a less-prominent conference.

As a top prospect at George Washington High School in 2009, Sharrif Floyd visited the Eagles' training facility when the team recognized academic and athletic achievers in local high schools. He remembers the visit four years later, including then-coach Andy Reid's calling him by his nickname, "Reef. " On April 5, Floyd again visited the NovaCare Complex. He was still being honored for his achievements, but the Eagles had more immediate interests, too. The Eagles welcomed Floyd because the defensive tackle from Florida is one of the top prospects in the draft.

AS ANDY REID trudged toward his inevitable end as Eagles head coach last December, attention naturally pushed in the direction of Howie Roseman, the Eagles' cherub-faced general manager operating in only his first season without Joe Banner over his shoulder. Some, including his boss, Jeffrey Lurie, saw Roseman as a shrewd judge of talent, crediting him with the choices made in the 2012 draft, while discounting his culpability in previous drafts and transactions, including the great free-agent "Dream Team" debacle of 2011, which accelerated the Eagles' dive from playoff contender to their current status among NFL rebuilders.

NEARLY 30 reporters crowded into a NovaCare meeting room Monday to talk to Eagles general manager Howie Roseman about the April 25-27 NFL draft. The session lasted nearly an hour, and the discussion meandered all over the map. Lots of the stuff Roseman said will be sprinkled through predraft stories over the next week or so. Right now, let's just parse what we might have learned about what the Birds might or might not do in the first round, when...

Picture this: The Eagles are on the clock with the No. 4 overall pick and the first three prospects on their draft board already have been chosen. The best available player is graded appreciably lower than the first three, isn't a schematic fit, and the Arizona Cardinals are offering the No. 7 selection and a third-rounder to move up three spots. The Birds brain trust has prepared for this scenario, but someone has to make the final decision. Will it be Chip Kelly or Howie Roseman?

Less than two weeks before the NFL draft begins on April 25, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said Monday that the Eagles have narrowed their options with the No. 4 pick to four players. Considering that Roseman continues to preach "best player available," those four players are the top four players on the Eagles' draft board. General managers are cryptic this time of year, so Roseman did not mention names. But those four players are expected to be from this group: Texas A&M tackle Luke Joeckel, Central Michigan tackle Eric Fisher, Oregon outside linebacker Dion Jordan, Florida defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd (from George Washington High School)