Some bad news for Eagles fans who have assigned most of the blame for this miserable season on Howie Roseman.
He isn’t going anywhere, according to a new report.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Paul Domowitch, citing sources close to owner Jeff Lurie, firing Roseman is “not even something Lurie has contemplated.”
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
This comes a week after former team president Joe Banner told the Inquirer that there was less than a 10% chance of Roseman leaving.
An anonymous league executive told the Inquirer that Lurie likes to be surrounded with those he can trust and “there’s nobody else there that can be that to him at the moment other than Howie.”
While Roseman’s job appears safe, the article claims the future of head coach Doug Pederson has not yet been determined. Earlier this week, Jason Kelce gave a pretty strong defense of his head coach.
Of course, when you look at the roster of this year’s team, it’s easy to point blame at Roseman. This team has suffered injuries, sure, but the talent is not there either. And you can just look at his recent drafts as the reason why.
NFL
And then there are the other blemishes like guaranteeing Alshon Jeffery’s contract or the frequent miss rate on free agents since the Super Bowl season.
But there was that Super Bowl season and that wasn’t all that long ago. Roseman deserves every bit of credit for putting together that roster. And it wasn’t long before that when he finally won a power struggle over Chip Kelly, surviving his year away from personnel decisions.
Roseman, 45, has been with the Eagles for two decades and has worked his way up to his current role as executive vice president and general manager. He and Lurie have grown extremely close over the last 20 years.
This quote from an anonymous Eagles employee from the Inquirer story is quite telling:
“He does have a blind spot when it comes to Howie,” said one current member of the organization. “I’m not saying he deserves to be fired for the way this season has gone. I mean, we did win a Super Bowl three years ago and have made the playoffs three straight years. So he probably deserves a little slack. But there’s no question that Jeffrey looks at Howie through a different lens than he does everybody else.”
Because of recent draft history, maybe there’s a chance the Eagles will bring in another personnel voice. Remember, when Roseman was reinstated back into power in 2016, one of the stipulations from Lurie was that Roseman find a top personnel mind, which eventually ended up being Joe Douglas. But Douglas has since moved on to the Jets and Andy Weidl was promoted to that post from within. Still, it would be Roseman with final say.
While Roseman has always been a master at the salary can and contracts, he has a spotty record when it comes to player evaluation, which also happens to be his favorite part of the job. So it’s tricky.
And the Eagles are in a precarious salary cap situation next year and Roseman has likely been working years ahead on how to solve it.
A few weeks ago, I interviewed ESPN’s Louis Riddick, who used to work for the Eagles. He seems to have an icy relationship with Roseman, so maybe take it with a grain of salt, but he’s a respected guy in the football world who clearly put a lot of blame on Roseman. Riddick, by the way, interviewed for two GM positions just this week.
“If this team ultimately doesn’t win, this isn’t just a Doug Pederson problem,” Riddick said to NBC Sports Philadelphia. “Let’s just go back and look at the past 5-7 drafts. Tell me where the impact players are. Tell me where the Pro Bowlers are. Tell me where the guys are that are making the difference around Carson (Wentz).”
Subscribe to the Eagle Eye podcast:
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | Watch on YouTube