Yesterday, Howie Roseman was willing to swing for the fences.
A year ago, Howie Roseman was the guy pumping the brakes.
The Eagles’ de facto General Manager wasn’t bashful about giving up future assets to move to the No. 2 overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, including a 2017 first-rounder and a 2018 second as part of the package to the Browns.
But last March at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, he espoused the opposite view.
“When you’re looking at trading up, at some point, your board drops off so dramatically in terms of how you evaluate that player,” Roseman said in 2015, via Zach Berman of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But the history of trading up for one player, when you look at those trades, isn’t good for the team trading up and putting a lot of resources into it.
“Because the guys who are really good at the draft, if you’re hitting on 60 percent of your first-round picks, that’s a pretty good track record. And then it’s dropping as you go through the rounds. So really, the more chances you get, the more tickets to the lottery you get, the better you should be doing.”
He seemed to hold that philosophy through his first stint in charge, when the Eagles collected 48 picks in five drafts.
Of course, a year ago, many people thought then-Eagles coach/G.M. Chip Kelly was going to be the guy to make the move up, to draft his college quarterback Marcus Mariota.
But interestingly enough, that move never happened, and now Roseman is a proponent of a philosophy which would have allowed it.