Why Jake Fisher Is an Ideal Fit for Philadelphia Eagles' Offense

With the free-agency period fast approaching its end, the Philadelphia Eagles have just over five weeks to prepare for the 2015 NFL draft.

It's been a wild three weeks for the Eagles, who started the madness by trading LeSean McCoy for Kiko Alonso and ended by signing last year's rushing champion, DeMarco Murray. In between, the Eagles also traded quarterback Nick Foles to the Rams for quarterback Sam Bradford. Oh, and they signed top cornerback Byron Maxwell and lost former first-round pick Jeremy Maclin to the Kansas City Chiefs. 

Despite their excessive spending spree, the Eagles currently have holes at a number of positions on both sides of the ball, notably quarterback, wide receiver, right guard, cornerback and safety. Their draft focus, of course, depends on whether they pursue Kelly's former college quarterback, Marcus Mariota. 

If the Eagles don't trade up for Mariota, however, they'll have eight picks in next month's draft: one in each of the seven rounds, plus an additional fifth-round pick. 

There are a number of different directions the Eagles could look in the first round of the draft. They could grab the best player available, even if it's a player at a position like running back or defensive end, where the Eagles are stacked. Or they could look for players at positions of need. 

The most obvious first-round pick for the Eagles, though, is a player who could be the best player available when the Eagles pick 20th and fill a position of need.

That would be versatile offensive lineman Jake Fisher, who probably fits with the Eagles better than any player to any team in the entire draft, excluding quarterback Marcus Mariota. 

That's no exaggeration, because when you think about it, what's better than a player playing for his college coach in the NFL? That's not happening anywhere else in the league.

Miami's Joe Philbin doesn't have any players he coached in college who he could implement in his same system in the NFL. Neither does Oakland's Jack Del Rio, Washington's Jay Gruden or any coach in the league. 

That's what makes Fisher a perfect fit with the Eagles. He's already used to playing with Chip Kelly. He knows all of Kelly's strange techniques, like Sports Science and sleep monitoring and smoothies. 

He's also familiar with the offense. Although Kelly's offense in the NFL isn't exactly the same as what he ran at Oregon, the shotgun-style offense with an emphasis on a strong running attack is similar.

Like the rest of the offensive linemen on the Eagles' roster, Fisher is extremely versatile and able to play both tackle and guard. He's played right tackle at Oregon for the last three seasons but moved to left tackle during his senior season after an injury to teammate Tyler Johnstone. 

Fisher, who fits perfectly in the zone-blocking scheme the Eagles like to run, could start out at right guard for Todd Herremans. He could move to right tackle in a year or two when Lane Johnson moves to left tackle to replace Jason Peters. 

Regardless of his position as a rookie, Fisher seems like the most obvious first-round pick for the Eagles. There's a big hole on the offensive line right now, and if the Eagles end up releasing Evan Mathis—as CSN Philly's Geoff Mosher reported could happen if the team doesn't find a trade partner—offensive line probably becomes the team's biggest need.