Eagles take big swing on massive free agent
At 6-foot-8 and 344 pounds, offensive tackle Hollin Pierce can block the sun, but can he do the same against NFL pass-rushers? If so, the Eagles will find a spot for their gigantic undrafted free agent.
At one point, Pierce weighed over 450 pounds as a high school student but lost weight once he started playing football at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. He still weighed 400 pounds when he joined Rutgers as a walk-on in 2020 but earned a starting role (and a scholarship) in 2021.
Pierce appeared in 52 games with the Scarlet Knights with 24 starts at right tackle and 26 starts at left tackle. He was twice nominated for the Burlsworth Trophy as one of the top walk-ons in college football and became Rutgers’ first offensive lineman to earn All-America status since Anthony Davis in 2009.
The 24-year-old prospect isn’t just big, he’s long with 36-inch arms and a wingspan of 7-foot-4. By comparison, former LSU offensive tackle Will Campbell, taken fourth overall by New England in this year’s draft has 32 ⅝-inch arms and a 6-foot-4 ⅜ wingspan.
Last offseason, Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland helped turn 6-foot-7, 343-pound Mekhi Becton, a disappointing four-year tackle with the Jets, into one of the best right guards in football. Now that Becton is with the Chargers, Philadelphia needs another guard.
The team picked up former Texans first-round pick Kenyon Green in the C.J. Gardner-Johnson trade, but few expect he’ll start after being benched by Houston in 2024. They took four more offensive linemen (Mac McWilliams, Drew Kendall, Myles Hinton, Cameron Williams) in the later rounds of the draft, but none can match Pierce’s physical attributes.
In what could be considered a sign of things to come, Stoutland used Pierce at right guard during last week’s minicamp. Things can always change when the team reports for OTA practices, but it’s fun to imagine Pierce on a line between 6-foot-8, 365-pound left tackle Jordan Mailata and 6-foot-6, 325-pound right tackle Lane Johnson.
The Eagles will resume offseason workouts on May 27 with mandatory minicamp beginning on June 10.
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