In October 2021, Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman had just returned from a scouting trip to Athens, Ga.

Nick Sirianni, the Eagles’ first-year coach, bumped into Roseman in the hallway at the team’s practice facility and asked him what Georgia players had caught his eye.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know. I like their whole defense,’ ’’ Roseman said.

Roseman wasn’t kidding. Here we are, two years later, and no fewer than five members of that defense happen to be employed by the Eagles. They took two in last year’s draft, selecting defensive tackle Jordan Davis in the first round and linebacker Nakobe Dean in the third.

They added three more Bulldog defenders at the 2023 NFL Draft, taking defensive tackle Jalen Carter and edge-rusher Nolan Smith in the first round, then adding cornerback Kelee Ringo in the fourth round.

Oh, and they also traded for yet another UGA player, acquiring running back D’Andre Swift from the Detroit Lions on the third day of the draft for a future (2025) fourth-round pick.

After the draft, Roseman had his joke material ready. The University of Florida grad said he probably would get tossed from the UF Alumni Association. Roseman referenced English soccer and said he was worried the Eagles might get relegated to the SEC if they took any more Georgia players.

“I know the Georgia jokes are coming and maybe already are,’’ Roseman told reporters after the draft. “But for us, it’s about the individual players. If we’re going to bypass a player just because we had taken another player from that school, I mean, that would be silly too.

“We took the players we took based on their grades. Obviously, it’s a great tribute to coach (Kirby) Smart and his staff about the kind of players and people they develop.’’

The truth is, it’s hard to find fault with any of the Eagles’ Georgia picks. They received A’s and A-pluses for their draft from most draft analysts. Even other general managers applauded them.

>>READ: Eagles Draft Grades

Eagles Did It Right

“They graded their players accurately,’’ said Hall of Fame executive Bill Polian, an analyst for The 33rd Team. “Georgia is a team that’s won two straight national championships. They have, if not the best players, certainly a plethora of very good ones.

“I think it was a combination of Georgia having a lot of really good players and many of those players coming into Philadelphia’s sights at the right time.’’

Last year, the Eagles traded up two spots in the first round to get Davis, a freakishly athletic 340-pounder, who turned heads with a 4.78 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. He had an underwhelming rookie season, but the Eagles remain bullish on him, particularly now that he’ll be lining up next to his former Georgia teammate Carter. Dean earned his keep on special teams last year but is expected to replace departed T.J. Edwards as the team’s starting middle linebacker.

Carter was considered by many to be the best non-quarterback in this year’s draft. But his involvement in a fatal car accident in January and character questions caused him to slide down to the Eagles. While some teams took Carter off their board or downgraded him, the Eagles felt they had the veteran locker room leadership to deal with any potential problems.

Smith, a 235-pound pound edge-rusher, who slid because of his size, was a no-brainer at No. 30 for a team that has no problem with quick-twitch, undersized edge guys. Like Carter, Ringo, who some had as a first- or second-round talent, slid largely because of character and work-ethic questions. But Roseman felt he was too good to pass up in Round 4.

NFL teams go where the talent is, and the talent typically can be found on the best teams and in the best conferences. Georgia and Alabama had 10 players drafted this year, the most by any school. Last year, the Dawgs had 15 taken, including five in the first round.

After Alabama won the national title in 2020, six players were selected in the first round of the 2021 draft.

Top Programs, Top Players

Roseman said he started focusing on players from the top programs in the 2021 draft when the Eagles’ first two picks were Alabama players – wide receiver DeVonta Smith and offensive lineman Landon Dickerson. Both are productive starters on an offense that finished third in scoring in 2022.

The year before selecting Smith and Dickerson, Roseman swung and missed on two of his first three picks. He committed one of the biggest mistakes of his career in the 2020 draft when he selected TCU wide receiver Jalen Reagor over LSU’s Justin Jefferson with the 21st overall pick and whiffed in the third round when he took Colorado linebacker Davion Taylor, who could run fast but do little else. To Roseman’s credit, he also drafted a guy named Jalen Hurts between those two picks.

“Obviously, 2020 was a weird process for us,’’ he said. “I’m not making excuses, but we weren’t all together and you didn’t get to know the people as well as you normally do because of COVID. I’m not crying for us. A lot of people were affected by COVID.

“But the next year, with a new coach, we knew we had to make sure our process was really tight. And we started with the two Alabama guys.

“The way those guys worked, the kind of players they are, certainly the kind of people they are, it just reminded us that it’s no different (selecting players) than it is when you’re trying to hire someone for a position. Obviously, you want guys to be really talented at what they do and whatever role they’re in. But the other stuff matters as well. The competition level matters. You see those guys [from Georgia and Alabama] play in the biggest games on the biggest stage against the best competition.’’

SEC Turns Out Quality

Roseman hardly is alone as far as favoring the top programs. For six straight years, the SEC has had the most overall draft selections of any conference in the country. In five of those six years, the team with the most selections was either Georgia or Alabama. The other year – 2020 – it was national champion LSU, which had 14 players taken, five in the first round.

During Polian’s successful GM tenures with Buffalo, Carolina and Indianapolis, he had a sweet tooth for Big 10 players.

“You evaluate players individually, but there are programs where kids are really pro-ready when they come out of those programs,’’ Polian said. “They know what it takes, what kind of work it takes to succeed. They understand what discipline is all about. They understand how to play smart, disciplined football. So, it’s not a coincidence that programs like Georgia and Alabama and others turn out players who are successful pros year after year.’’

Mike Tannenbaum, who was the New York Jets’ GM from 2006 through 2012 and the Miami Dolphins’ executive vice president of football operations from 2015-2018, said he favored players from the big conferences.

“When you take guys from the top programs, top conferences, if you ask them to do exactly what they did in college, you’re going to reduce the risk rate.’’

Certainly No Guarantee

Reduce, but not eliminate. Just because a kid played at a top program doesn’t mean he definitely is going to be a successful pro. There are tons of guys from Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Clemson and Ohio State who didn’t even get a cup of coffee in the NFL … or spilled it all over their pants.

“The general philosophy is that the best teams produce the best players,’’ said Ben Fennell, an Emmy Award-winning producer, editor and analyst who has been a part of the NFL Network’s draft coverage for the past nine years. “But the deeper conversation is the draft is all about calculated risks and bets.

“There are plenty of players from programs like Georgia’s and Alabama’s that don’t make it and aren’t good enough. But there also are plenty who are worth the bet. When you come from a higher level program, you’ve played against a higher level of competition and have dealt with a higher level of expectations. You’ve played in critical games. Their bodies are more mature because those programs have more resources, better facilities. There’s a lot of things that connect with taking players from those programs in that they’re more advanced than other prospects.’’

Fennell pointed out that there are 133 schools in the FBS. Over the past nine years, just 14 of those 133 have qualified for the playoffs.

“When you look at the Hall of Fame players from the last 20 years, they’re from all over the place,’’ he said. “But as far as calculated risk, it’s just better to bet on players from the top programs. They’ve been a part of a culture of expectation. They have an honest belief that they’re pursuing a championship. Not everyone’s goals are the same in college football. There are people who walk out there in Week 1 knowing they aren’t competing for a national championship.

“I’m not saying you can’t get a ‘holy crap’ player out of a school like that, but it just increases the odds of that calculated risk.’’

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Paul Domowitch covered the Eagles and the NFL for the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer for four decades. You can follow him on Twitter at @pdomo.