New head coach, same power dynamic with the Eagles

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The Eagles have a new head coach, but the power dynamic within the organization will remain the same.

Nick Sirianni confirmed at the tail end of his nearly 54-minute press conference on Friday that general manager Howie Roseman will remain in charge of the Eagles’ 53-man roster. Sirianni will have say over game day rosters.

This isn’t exactly earth-shattering news — it’s the same setup the Eagles had with Doug Pederson as their head coach — but it is certainly notable.

Roseman, 45, has been in control of the Eagles’ 53-man roster since he was reinstated as the Eagles’ personnel czar in 2016 after Chip Kelly was ousted. He kept that power throughout Pederson’s tenure as head coach.

That doesn’t mean the coaches and GM won’t work together. They will. But it seems like it’ll be in a similar fashion to how it worked with the previous coaching staff.

“As far as picking the players and helping pick the players, I really look forward to working with Howie and his staff to help get the players that we feel like fit what we want to do offensively and defensively,” Sirianni said.

“We work with what we have. But there are players that we’re like, ‘OK, this player has this skillset, we’d love to use him for these couple things that we’ve had success with in the past,'” Sirianni said. “So really look forward to doing that with [Roseman], because I think the best organizations I’ve been on are ones that work together at that.”

Sirianni and his offensive coaches will have opinions on offensive players. Jonathan Gannon (who has been a scout before) and his defensive coaches will have opinions on defensive players. And Roseman will listen to them; he has in the past. But ultimately, it’ll be Roseman putting together the Eagles’ rosters and that doesn’t seem likely to change.

Really, it seems like this is the setup the Eagles prefer.

As the Eagles were preparing to make their decision on the next head coach, it seemed like Sirianni and Josh McDaniels had risen to prime candidates. There was this interesting nugget from ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio:

“I also heard yesterday - look, McDaniels ran the show in Denver,” Florio said. “Howie Roseman has a major seat at the table in Philly. How do these two co-exist? My understanding is, Roseman is fine with it. It's just a matter of talking the owner, Jeffrey Lurie, into it.”

Interesting, right? Roseman was fine with bringing in McDaniels, perhaps feeling stable in his standing in the organization. But perhaps Lurie wasn’t eager to have the organization go through a similar power struggle to the one that eventually led to Kelly’s ouster in 2015.

With McDaniels, a former head coach and long-time coordinator, it seemed like there was a decent chance that he’d want to have more power over the Eagles’ roster than a candidate like Sirianni. Remember, Sirianni had been an offensive coordinator for just three seasons and the 39-year-old’s interview with the Eagles was his first for a head coaching position.

During his five years at the helm, Pederson continually passed up chances for a power grab; he wasn’t interested. And no one had more leverage than Pederson after coaching the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory.

So if Pederson never tried to wrestle away control from Roseman, it’s hard to envision Sirianni ever will either. And, for better or worse, it appears the Eagles like it that way.

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