Wake-Up Call: Green-Beckham A Reasonable Risk

Dorial Green-Beckham. (USA Today Sports)

There are countless reasons to believe Dorial Green-Beckham will never come close to reaching his potential. His two arrests. The police investigation into when he allegedly pushed a female down stairs. Recently being listed below six receivers at the bottom of the Titans’ depth chart.

But if that’s not enough, here’s a sampling of Titans head coach Mike Mularkey’s recent comments about the 23-year-old receiver, all from the past week or so.

Mularkey yesterday after the trade was announced: “The inconsistency — that was there. We had many conversations about having back-to-back-to-back [good] days.”

Mularkey on August 9, when asked about Green-Beckham’s progress: “It’s bad day, good day. Same thing it’s been since the very first day.”

Mularkey again on August 9, when asked how Green-Beckham can erase inconsistency: “That’s spending extra time. That’s doing things when nobody’s watching. That’s in the classroom. I think it’s just putting the work in without being directed by anybody, doing it yourself. … He does do it. I’d do it more.”

Sensing a theme?

The 6-5, 237-pound target never came close to putting things together in Tennessee, and the fact that his work ethic has been questioned is probably a telling reason why. But even with all of these question marks surrounding Green-Beckham, both on the field and off, the fact that Dennis Kelly is all the Eagles had to give up makes yesterday’s trade a smart one, given the front office actually is confident Green-Beckham is reformed off of the field and won’t harm those around him.

Howie Roseman mentioned Green-Beckham’s “rare skill set” yesterday, and that’s not really an exaggeration of what the receiver can do. As a rookie last season, the 2015 second-round pick led first-year players in yards per reception (17.2), while ranking sixth among all NFL receivers in the same category. Before the draft last April, Mike Mayock said Green-Beckham “looks like a young Randy Moss” because of the Missouri native’s height, weight and speed.

Said Sam Bradford yesterday after the trade was announced: “I’m all for it regardless of what position it’s at. The fact that they were aggressive and went out and made a move bringing in someone who they feel is going to help us is awesome.”

If Bradford could be more candid, he’d probably say he’s “all for it” specifically because of the position Green-Beckham plays. Perhaps Nelson Agholor will take a significant step forward this season, or maybe one of the other receivers will come out of nowhere and surprise with their contributions, but an honest assessment of the team’s outside threats reflects they don’t actually have a very big threat.

Despite his troubling inconsistency, Green-Beckham instantly became the Eagles’ most talented receiver to play opposite of Jordan Matthews when they acquired him. Even if Green-Beckham doesn’t decide to show up to practice every day motivated and ready to go, all they gave up was a fringe player on the 53-man roster.

Although the receiver could also be considered that because of how he tumbled down Tennessee’s depth chart, he’s a player who can go out and win you games.

There’s another notable Mularkey quote on Green-Beckham, which the coach said on January 18 when addressing the receiver potential: “That’s up to him. He’s young. He’s got to learn how to be a pro. … I think a lot of that will be up to him, how he prepares, starting now.”

It turns out Green-Beckham didn’t prepare how he should’ve in Tennessee, and while it’s understandable to expect the receiver to not do much in Philadelphia, the low cost alone makes Roseman’s risk reasonable as he hopes to win big.

WHAT YOU MISSED

“Obviously, he’s made mistakes, but he’s a good-hearted kid.” Howie Roseman said the team did their research before acquiring Dorial Green-Beckham.

Mychal Kendricks, Jalen Mills, and Carson Wentz are notable Eagles who will not play tomorrow night against the Steelers.

Dennis Kelly goes to Tennessee, while Green-Beckham hopes to shine in a new setting.

Even with Wentz out of practice, Frank Reich says the rookie will still be able to develop as a quarterback.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING

With the Green-Beckham trade, Nelson Agholor isn’t scared at all, writes Les Bowen of the Daily News.

Is this move a challenge to Agholor, who, after all, was not a Roseman draft pick?

“I don’t look at it as a message, I look at it as an opportunity for us to become a better football team,” Agholor said. “They want the same thing I want, and that’s to win football games and to be a great football team.”

Agholor says he knows Green-Beckham from the draft process – Green-Beckham went 40th overall, in the second round, to Tennessee last year, when Agholor went 20th. They have the same agent group and both are adidas clients.

“I know him very well. I have a lot of respect for him,” Agholor said. “I think he’s a great football player. He’s a competitor. He’s a guy with a lot of talent, and he’s going to help us out. He’s a good person . . . We’re very close.”

Green-Beckham will accompany the Eagles to Pittsburgh for Thursday’s preseason game, but won’t play, coach Doug Pederson said. It’s hard to project exactly how the new guy fits in, since he has no concept of Pederson’s offense just yet.

“I’m going to make myself useful on the football field, regardless,” Agholor said. “I come out here, I’m going to play hard, I’m going to have great speed, great effort, be detail-oriented, and make plays. At the end of the day, I’m going to be on this football team, and I’m going to help this team win football games.”

After starting as an intern in the scouting department for about a week, Brian Dawkins has been hired full-time as a Football Operations Executive. Dave Zangaro of CSNPhilly.com has more.

Vice president of football operations Howie Roseman announced the move at a strange time during his press conference on Tuesday, which was scheduled after the Eagles traded for Dorial Green-Beckham. When asked why Doug Pederson was the right guy to handle players with off-the-field issues in their pasts, Roseman said it was on the entire organization.

Then he said this: “On a different note, today we hired Brian Dawkins full-time to help in this regard. His title is Football Operations Executive. And he’s going to help in player development. In his week here, we saw the contributions he can make to our football team. And we’re not putting it (all) on Brian either. It’s on all of us. We feel like we’re going to get a structure in place that gives us the best chance to succeed.”

When Dawkins, 42, was brought into the scouting department a couple weeks ago as a part of the NFL’s Nunn-Wooten Scouting Fellowship, he said he was looking forward to seeing if it would lead to something bigger.

It looks like it already has.

The Eagles have been working hard this offseason to restore a family feeling to the NovaCare Complex. Five of their coaches — Doug Pederson, Duce Staley, Greg Lewis, Tim Hauck and Eugene Chung — played for the team and former safety Quintin Mikell is the team’s Director of Player Engagement.

COMING UP

We’ll have more on Dorial Green-Beckham.

Chris Jastrzembski contributed to this post.