The Eagles’ front office turnover continued Friday with word that 75-year-old scouting executive Tom Donahoe has decided to leave the organization after 10 years.
The news was first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane.
Donahoe, named the best general manager in NFL history last year by Yardbarker, joined the Eagles in May of 2012 as senior football adviser. He was promoted to senior director of player personnel in 2015, when Chip Kelly replaced Howie Roseman as general manager, and held that title until reverting back to Senior Football Adviser in 2016.
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Donahoe is best-known as the architect of the Steelers teams of the 1990s. He left the Steelers in 1999 after 15 years following a power struggle with coach Bill Cowher, who he hired in 1992, soon after becoming GM.
He spent 2001 through 2005 as president and general manager of the Bills and was responsible for signing undrafted rookie tight end Jason Peters in 2004.
Donahoe was out of football from 2006 through 2011 and did some broadcasting work before joining the Eagles in 2012.
Donahoe was largely a behind-the-scenes figure during his decade with the Eagles. He met with the media once in the last 10 years, back in 2015.
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He did gain a measure of notoriety during last year’s draft, when he appeared disgusted by the Eagles’ decision to draft defensive tackle Milton Williams out of Louisiana Tech in the 3rd round instead of North Carolina State defensive tackle Alim McNeill and famously rebuffed Roseman’s televised attempt at a fist bump.
Roseman went on WIP soon after and explained that it was a normal disagreement between two front office executives and didn’t represent anything unusual.
In that interview he called Donahoe “an important voice within the organization's player evaluation department.”
Donahoe is the latest in an increasingly lengthy line of members of Roseman’s scouting department to leave the organization since the season ended.
Earlier this offseason, the Eagles lost both co-directors of player personnel — Ian Cunningham to the Bears and Brandon Brown to the Giants.
The timing of these losses — weeks before the draft — prompted the Eagles to propose a bylaws change that was passed earlier this offseason. The new rule allows teams to keep “secondary football executives” through the draft.
And this week, director of scouting operations Casey Weidl, area scout Shawn Heinlan, player personnel executive T.J. McCreight and scouting assistant Evan Pritt were all fired; vice president of football operations Catherine Raiche left to join former Eagles front-office exec Andrew Berry with the Browns; and now Donahoe is leaving as well.
Meanwhile, Eagles vice president of player personnel Andy Weidl — Casey’s older brother — is a finalist for the Steelers’ GM job, which opened up when Kevin Colbert decided to retire. Colbert replaced Donahoe as Steelers director of football operations in 2000.
NFL teams routinely make front office changes soon after the draft, but this is a lot of turnover for one team in the span of three months.
“You talk about some of the things here that have happened since the end of the 2019 draft — we’ve lost a lot of really good people and we still have a lot of really good people,” Howie Roseman said Saturday.
“Because of that, we're going to have to continue to make additions and continue to fortify that group. I think we have a good process for that."
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