Former Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman used to run the football side. Now, he’s not even in that side of the building.
But coach Chip Kelly denied Wednesday that there was a power-struggle between himself and Roseman. On a day when he said he had been offered a first-round pick for Sam Bradford, that might have actually been his most outlandish suggestion of the day.
“I think there’s a lot of things out there that people talk about all the time that weren’t true,” Kelly said, via Geoff Mosher of CSNPhilly.com. “I get along great with him. Great working relationship. Just like I do with everybody else in this building.”
Maybe it’s because Kelly talks so fast or all the quarterback questions that that part almost slid by today. But on its face, it seems the opposite of what most people consider the truth.
The fact that Kelly said the shakeup was owner Jeff Lurie’s idea, and the way he pinned an underwhelming 2014 draft class on Roseman, and another show of support for personnel man Tom Gamble (whom Roseman fired) did nothing to change the lingering perception.
“I didn’t think I needed control of personnel. That was a decision that our owner made,” Kelly said. “I just had a meeting with him like I do at the end of every year in terms of the direction of what we’re doing and how do we go from being a 10-6 team to a team that could win the Super Bowl. That was a decision that Jeff made. . . .
“I just talked about the vision of what this thing [is] . . . and he came back to me with what he wanted to do. It’s Mr. Lurie’s decision on how things are run.”
Of course, the fact that Kelly left the podium with a Frank Underwood-style ring tap does nothing to dispel the ugly rumors that the Eagles front office is full of House of Cards-style political drama.
