Howie Update
Posted: November 22nd, 2013 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 108 Comments »I’m finishing up the game review (crazy week) and I wanted to throw something short and quick out there. What do you guys think of Howie Roseman right now?
Howie is always going to be a lightning rod for criticism. He’s seen as Joe Banner’s guy. He doesn’t have a traditional football background. He has yet to make any defining moves that do great things for the franchise. When things are good, some people will give him credit. When things go wrong, his detractors come out in droves.
Things aren’t great right now, but they are pointed in the right direction. So what is going on with Howie and Eagles Nation?
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As we look at some moves, they are tough to evaluate. Isaac Sopoaga was a disappointment, but if he had any kind of a positive influence on Bennie Logan, you might have to argue that was a great move. Logan was able to work his way into the lineup and got mentored by a smart veteran on the way.
James Casey has been a disappointment. This is more on Chip Kelly for not playing him. Casey has looked good when he’s gotten the chance. He’s been terrific on STs.
Signing Donnie Jones was a terrific move. Adding the right veteran Punter just didn’t register as a sexy move back in the offseason. We wanted star players or key positions.
Cedric Thornton has outplayed Fletcher Cox to this point. Depending on what you think of Howie, you can look at that 2 different ways. Howie found a UDFA D-lineman that has become a very good starter. Or…Howie’s high pick DL is getting out-performed by some UDFA.
Nick Foles looks great right now. Why did Howie let Chip Kelly waste time with Michael Vick? The flip side is that Howie may have found a franchise QB in the 3rd round.
You can go back and forth on everything as you try to spin it.
I don’t think you can deny that the last 2 draft classes are looking pretty darn good. Howie did a good job in FA this year. Connor Barwin has been better than I expected. Bradley Fletcher has been good. Patrick Chung and Cary Williams are flawed but effective. Allen Barbre was a terrific signing. Oddball additions like Jeff Maehl, Najee Goode and Roc Carmichael have worked out well.
Howie isn’t suddenly a genius. He’s finding some talented players, but a lot of the credit also has to go to Kelly and the staff for developing these players in terms of fitness and football skills. The coaches are finding a way to get the best out of players.
Here’s an interesting question…have any players this year been major underachievers? Vick got hurt. Todd Herremans is learning a new position. Has any player flat-lined?
Whenever we talk about a great GM, people tend to forget there is usually a really good head coach and coaching staff involved. Brett Favre sat on the bench in Atlanta and became a Hall of Famer in Green Bay. Did the Falcons GM make a bad pick? No. Jerry Glanville didn’t like Favre and things didn’t work out, but that circumstantial, not about talent. The Cardinals spent a high pick on Darwin Walker and cut him before the season. He came to Philly and sat for most of the year and then became a darn good player. The staff knew how to coach him up and use him.
The Eagles have a good coaching staff right now. It just might turn out the GM that so many people love to hate actually knows what he’s doing and is pretty good.
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Or people can be rational and appreciate BOTH 22yr old Cox AND the play of 25yr old Thornton!!! SMH!!! It’s NOT a race to see which of our players can get comfortable in the scheme and perform at a higher level faster. THE ONLY way you interpret is, Howie did an amazing job identifying a FORCE in Cox worth trading up for, and Howie did an amazing job plucking an Undrafted GEM in Thornton…
Considering I’m about to go to the playoffs on the back of a 3rd round pick with less than 16 games of experience, and a roster with 36 players under the age of 26…Not exactly sure how you say anything other than THANK YOU to Howie!!
I agree, assuming that Howie is blamless for the top 3 choices in 2010 and 2011.
I don’t even care if he is to blame for those drafts, because he is a young GM, who was learning on the job…even if those were all his mistakes, I don’t believe these past two drafts were a fluke,and I’m confident that when he makes a mistake he learns from it…he made his mistakes, he had to Learn a lot of things the hard way but to me it sure seems like he has learned from it and has grown into a solid GM who has done an impressive job these past two years…
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Takes a lot of balls to hire a guy with no experience like Chip, who is going to want to drastically CHANGE. Everything that Andy created, which was ALL HOWIE KNEW…that was a BIG TIME risk. Chip flopping in Tampa! wouldn’t be like Chip flopping in Philly after a 4-13 city and the NNamdi mistake..
Big balls
Big Risk
BIG REWARD…in 8 months Chip and how transformed our weak and dysfunctional locker room and brought some toughness and team UNITY, passion, hunger back to this city!!
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Howie “SPLASH” Roseman…how you like him now LaConshithead?
I love the “I’m about to go to the playoffs”. Is that you Nick?
Don’t know what YALL doin, but IM going to the playoffs lol…who’s wit me? Positive reinforcement baby!!
To me, the relationship between coach and GM is so symbiotic it’s tough to tell where one ends and another begins when it comes to talent evaluation. My (lame) analogy is that the GM is essentially the farmer/butcher/whatever else, while the coach is the chef. We as the fans – who I guess would be the guys sitting at the restaurant – have almost no way to judge how awesome the potatoes were prior to having been mashed, or how spectacular the vegetable oil was before it got mixed into the Snack Pack.
I think it’s easier to evaluate Howie in terms of the returns he’s gotten on trades – which I think have been pretty decent, whether for players or moving around in the draft -, how adept he’s been at evaluating when a player will go in the draft – again, it seems like he’s done a pretty good job at that, – and any hires he may make from his position. So far, the Chip Kelly hire looks solid as well. But as for talent evaluation, it’s really tough to peel apart where the GM’s job ends and the coaches begins.
That’s a very good analogy, IMO.
The last 2 drafts (Which Howie was responsible for without interference from Big Red) have been superb, and this years FA class has brought in Bradley Fletcher, Connor Barwin and Donnie Jones.
I was never necessarily down on Howie, but to me he’s really justified the consolidation of power Lurie has allowed him.
Lurie doesn’t get enough credit as an owner, when you look at all the screwball owners around the league we should count ourselves lucky that we have one who doesn’t actively screw over the team with their meddling (looking at you Jerruh and Snyder), and who when they actually have to make an impactful decision (giving Roseman more power in the FO based on his previous evaluations) they actually end up being good decisions.
Lurie can do no wrong in my eyes because he got Braman out of town, for which any Eagle fan should be eternally grateful.
And the Linc is pretty sweet too
I wasn’t around for the Braman era, but from everything I read about it it sounds horrible.
I personally like Lurie, & yes, he is infinitely better than the jerk that preceded him. That being said, I do hold him responsible for allowing Reid to go completely off the reservation & run the team into the ground the way he did in his final few years. I’ll be a lot more forgiving about that though if things end up working out now with Chip the way I think they will.
Howie is a genius, but I reserve the right to call him an idiot if things don’t pan out.
Seriously though. He is tied to Chip, as long as they get along. Chip is Howie’s biggest hire. So as long as we keep winning. (The bar will be raised next year) He will be around. Once things turn South, then he will be under the microscope.
But the production we are getting from our last two drafts is outstanding.
Living in Houston and seeing how it can all fall apart quickly, especially when expectations are high. The GM was brilliant now a boob.
Right now Howie is riding the Chip wagon to credibility.
I’ve been a huge Roseman fan since he was promoted. I’ve been pleased that his performance has lived up to my lofty expectations in a number of areas.
But as we judge him on his drafts and free agents, let’s not forget his most important acquisition: Chip Kelly. I seriously doubt that Kelly would be our coach right now if Roseman hadn’t been the guy in charge recruiting him.
I’d put Chung and Casey as flatlining tbh
I think Casey time will come! even if it’s not this year….Chung will be an awesome backup at safety and Nickle next year while being a beast on ST…Chung as a starter is nothing to write home about. But when you replace the KurtColemans with a better player in Chung, that’s how your team gets better and build some serious depth..
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ST has been playing great. can’t wait to add Jason Phillips and replacing Coleman with Chung.
I hate the thought of Kurt Coleman gone. I actually like the kid. But as a backup and special teamer
Casey was acquired before the draft. Who can say how that signing would look right now if both Eifert and Ertz had been off the board before the Eagles picked?
Consider an alternate scenario: The Eagles don’t sign Casey, they don’t get Ertz in the draft, and we are all complaining that Roseman should have realized we needed to be deeper than Celek and Harbour at TE.
Foles probably would have turned Igwenagu into a superstar.
I think Chip has discovered that he likes using 11 personnel a lot more than he thought he would.
I agree, so we’d probably all be saying “Chip would love to play 3 TEs but he doesn’t have the personnel!”
I think he realizes that if he puts out 3WR to start a series, the defenses will be stuck with nickel personnel while we’re in the hurry-up, and more often than not he likes that matchup.
Good point.
One of my favorite things about Roseman is that, as a graduate of Florida, I think he respects big conference talent more than the previous regime.
For example, Benny Logan was not a big name with spectacular stats. But he played for a top team against top competition where he was part of a deep defensive line rotation. Would Andy Reid have picked Logan? I doubt it. He would have gone for some guy from a division III school that had been beating up on high school level talent for 4 years.
You might hope Stoutland’s opinion played a role too. There is a theory/hope that with a few colleage coaches on board their evaluation of talent, esp in conference talent, should be better than average for the first couple of years.
^ this
I’ve been banging my fists re: this point since the coach hirings. Not only that, but the former college coaches are at key positions- Stoutland knows almost every top OL prospect in the country, those in the SEC and others he recruited. And of course, he’s pretty good with the DL competition too. McGovern and Minter know (and have coached) some of the better LBs or recent years. And Lovett has a feel for the DBs. And of course, Kelly.
Big advantage these next 2 years as Kelly builds his foundation.
Not to mention, that I’m sure our College coaches will maintain their relationships with their former college Colleagues
right they (the team) loved the Logan pick, but it wasn’t well received. He is still getting better so I’m not calling him HOF bound, but it looks like they knew what they were doing.
I have to say, when I posted my analysis of the draft (No big deal but for fun I’m a contributing opinion writer for another Philly sports blog site), Logan was a bit of a head scratcher & I questioned the pick mainly because he wasn’t a sexy pick where you could point towards his stats. He is a guy that does the “dirty work”, and does it well. So in agreeing with Capone’s statement…Couldn’t be happier with him.
i’m actually really happy with the coaching staff at this point (though lukewarm on Fipp, i’ll give him a little more time).
i’m secretly hoping that none of our coaching staff get poached by other teams for a few years.
I don’t think there will be much poaching after a single season.
I wonder if Stoutland will advocate for his guy like Mudd did when he was here. Of course, Andy loved his linemen so that might have had more influence on drafting OL/DLs. There’s a lot of raw prospects that have high ceilings this draft so it’ll be interesting if we pick up some OL prospects.
Even if Soap had no effect on Logan’s development, I think it was a good signing. Serviceable veteran NT meant Howie didn’t *have* to draft a NT early to fill the hole. Even though they did draft Logan, he wasn’t necessarily pigeon-holed into NT; he was possible competition for Thornton at DE also. Always assumed Soap was just a place-holder. The fact that Logan developed so quickly into an effective NT is more important than Soap’s mediocre showing. I don’t think Howie or Chip or Billy ever expected much more out of Soap than they got.
i think this point echoes the previous one made by someone else about James Casey.
he picked up two guys in FA to fill two holes in the defense. he didn’t know who was going to be available later on in the draft so if they didn’t get the guy or guys they wanted, they at least have SOMEONE to play.
Nnamdi was Howie’s deal right?
Let’s say he was. People need to recognize the difference between bad signings and good signings that don’t work out. In my opinion, Asomugha was the latter. He was considered to be one of the best cornerbacks in the league and we gave up nothing to get him. That’s a good signing that unfortunately did not work out.
Yes, they paid him a lot of money, but who cares about Lurie’s money as long as we don’t put ourselves in cap trouble? I think Jeffrey was able to weather the relatively small hit to his finances.
I understand what you are saying, but I’m not sure I fully agree with you on Nnamdi. Part of the job of the GM is to CORRECTLY assess the skills of a player and to make sure that when they sign a player, that player fits within the roster and the scheme in place. Fans loved Nnamdi, but clearly we overlooked several flaws in his game by the time he was signed by the Eagles. On top of that, with DRC, Asante, and Nnamdi, you had 3 players for 2 spots and forced one of those players to play out of position in the slot.
I will agree with you that there are worse signings that GMs regularly make, so the Nnamdi signing wasn’t an awful signing by Howie, but personally, I wouldn’t call it a good signing that didn’t work out.
Maybe Chip could have gotten DRC to tackle if we kept him.
I have actually wondered about this.
With DRC’s seeming need to be in a winning program to give his all and Chip’s ability to motivate players to take responsibility for themselves and their teammates, I’ve wondered if we would have gotten the DRC that Denver has this year.
Sorry to get on this thread so late, interesting opinions. No offense Iskar, but the press and majority of NFL fans had the eagles high on a pedestal with the talent they had on paper. The GM team stacked the Eagle’s deck with legitimate talent. The thought of 3 star CB’s was insane.
I wonder how good that defense would have been under Jim Johnson. (Yes, I truly believe, that year, the defense could have been special with a good DC). It was Vick’s breakout year, and we almost beat the Packers in the playoffs.
I fault the coaches more than the management for not getting the most/best out of their players.
To me, to job of a GM is to build a talented team, not bring in talented players. The difference is subtle, but it is focused on the sum of all the talent rather than the talent of individuals. Fans and the media love individual talent. The Cowboys for example are overrated every single year, and that’s because they have fantastic individual talent but lack an overall team talent.
In terms of the 3 star CBs, just listen to Chip Kelly on Boykin and how the slot CB position is as different from the outside CBs as OLBs are from ILBs. With Asante, DRC, and Nnamdi, we had no one who had experience as a slot CB. On top of that, we had two CBs who are press CBs in DRC and Nnamdi and one who was a freelancer. Finally, we had brought in three CBs who were bad tacklers, two of which actively avoided tackling.
To me, it’s the GMs job to anticipate the fit of players on the team and in my opinion, the issue was fit, not simply coaching.
Now, were those mistakes egregious mistakes? Absolutely not. I’m certainly not trying to bury Howie Roseman for going after a talented player, but I do think he made a mistake which as the GM he should have been able to avoid, even if the fans and media did not see it. Keep in mind, the fans and media are not GMs of football teams. Howie should be expected to be better at evaluation and team building than fans and media.
Good points. I agree, we should expect a good GM to be more football savvy then us fans and the Media.
I still feel that the blame falls more upon the coaches than management. If the coaching staff tells the GM, hey, we need X, Y, and Z to have a good team, I feel it’s the GM’s job to get the coach what he needs. If the GM doesn’t trust the coach, then he needs a new coach. I suspect Howie is trusting Chip and helping Chip get the pieces he’s requested for his 3-4 D, and building the team the way Chip wants…. just a guess 🙂
medium risk, but high reward. At the time, many thought that put the Eagles in the Super Bowl conversation. Only cost $, not draft picks or cap flexibility.
And he wasn’t solely responsible, that whole FA class was somewhat toxic. It’s up to the coaches to take all those egos and make it work. Death by a thousand paper cuts
Nnamdi was a Howie signing. Fooled us all.
He’s at home, even now, laughing maniacally as he rolls around on his bed of four million dollars with his hot TV star wife.
And that’s why you should never put money in your mouth.
Doubt Howie was the only GM who thought NNamdi was worth a boatload of money….Should be doing FEDERAL time for embezzlement and fraud
I bet Cowboy fans were laughing their asses off when Nnamdi sucked it up here. Heck, I wish we could go back in time and give them Nnamdi.
Howie’s a beast!
I read the players are off until next Wed. Are they really just “off” for a week, or are they at the practice facility almost every day. Are the coaches off? I hope/expect that Chip is installing a new wrinkle or two for the Cardinals with the extra week. But how can that happen if everyone is off? Even if the coaches dream it up (ie they are not off), there is only the usual amount of prep days next week to install it?
They are OFF. Every NFL team has a bye week for this reason. Coaches are undoubtedly working. But players go home, recover, workout on their own, etc., for the most part.
ok but I still expect a rout of the Cardinals. The coaches must do a lot of work, otherwise the whole “Andy is great after the bye” makes no sense.
I wouldn’t expect a rout of a top-10 D.
I hope the Cards upset the Colts, then we spank them on SNF. Yes this bye week is brutal.
The one thing that seems to be a pattern with Howie is that he seems to self-evaluate well and tries to improve every year. I don’t think he can be completely given a pass on 2010 and 2011 drafts despite what Lurie said, but it appears he has made it a point to avoid those same mistakes.
More recently, we seem to have had very successful drafts (although, I’ve always taken the mindset of you can’t judge a draft fully, positively or negatively, until three years out). And outside of the draft, Howie seems to be extremely aggressive in optimizing the bottom of the roster, something that in my opinion is very valuable. We don’t necessarily hit on a ton of the bottom of the roster moves, but the players he trades away are guys that wouldn’t make the team otherwise, so getting anything out of them is always a positive.
I think the other part of this is that people generally either get better at their jobs, or prove they are in over their head. The fact that the last couple of drafts seem to be better than the first couple of drafts is a good sign. I do think you need to view the Coach/GM/Staff group as a team, so assigning credit and/or blame to one specific member of that team is extremely difficult, unless you have a first-hand account of one guy overriding the wishes of the rest.
I think Howie has always been a genius, it just took a while for us (and for him) to notice it. He has learned from his mistakes (trying to sign a Super Bowl team in FA) and has benefitted from getting Reid out of the way to give him the flexibility to make his own decisions.
Tommy – the only player that comes to mind that has been a bit of a disappointment has been Bryce Brown in the sense that he hasn’t taken the next step in his development (yet). Maybe it’s just his lack of experience (given his college background).
Even with Bryce, a late 7th round pick, he has 2 games with over 150 yards. Most 7th round running backs hope for a single 300 yard season over the course of their whole careers. For where he was picked he’s shattered expectations, but his lack of production this year has been a big disappointment.
I think Bryce is more of a momentum runner if that makes any sense. He needs to be fed the ball for him to have impact as a runner. For a guy who didn’t play much football, he looks pretty good as a receiver out of the backfield.
Bryce has not been good this year, but I think he is guy that you can expect to step forward Y3/4, just because he has so little football experience. He is learning lesson’s he should have picked up at college at the moment.
Damaris is another disapointment. I expected him to actually play.
It really makes you wonder how bad Reid’s staff was by the end…particularly on the defensive side, but also on offense. Reid had so many wonderful assistants over the years and really put together one of the better coaching staffs ever when he was named Eagles coach, but failed to properly re-stock the cupboard as they went on to become head coaches/coordinators/etc. Is Nate Allen really a pretty good player but just got screwed up by the coaching? Why was Cedric Thornton criminally underutilized? Why could no one coach special teams? Did Reid just need to clean house and start over or did that require moving to another team?
Reid tried promoting from within and that didn’t work, so he went to the outside and got “name” coaches that didn’t work out very well. Here’s hoping Chip can keep his staff together for a while and re-stock once they start to get other jobs assuming (and this is a big assumption) that things continue to work out.
Ceddy was raw and needed that first year on the practice squad to get better. As far as last year, in the system the Eagles were playing I believe he got a fairly good number of reps at the nose splitting time with Patterson. He played in an odd front in college and alot of people felt coming out that his best position would probably be a 34 DE. The scheme fits his skills perfectly.
Ced’s a two-gapper through and through. He’s now playing the position his skills make him most qualified to play.
Don’t forget Howie’s role in relentlessly pursuing Chippa, even after he said no, until he got his man. Frankly, Howie is a strong deal maker and a very good drafter. He manages the cap well, provides flexibility… I can’t think of any part of his job he doesn’t do well.
On the ownership issue, he and Roseman’s focus on someone who is a program builder really impressed me. They studied past success of other teams, tried to identify the most important qualities and then tried to find the right people. I’m not claiming the result will be a SB, but I like the process.
what did you all think of the last play of the Pats game? I think maybe it was not catchable, but if you purposefully grab a play (their best player) to take him out of the final play, I think if you don’t call that stuff then you invite more muggings in future games. It wasn’t typical PI, it was more like an intentional foul in basketball way past any sort of “let the players” decide the game.
Putting aside who I root for and against, I just think it’s bad for football. I would be beside myself if the Eagles lost a game like that. Of course, we don’t rely on one TE and we don’t cheat, but I’m getting off track.
really hard to say. i agree with the idea that the ball would not have been caught by the Pats either way. the db who got the INT read the play perfectly and would have had a play on the ball no matter what.
i think you could say “if the defender that made contact (Kuechly?) was not there, the Pats may have had a chance at the ball. However, you can’t just re-do the play as 11 on 10. Even if that guy is there and doesn’t touch the pats guy, he is still between the receiver and the ball with another defender streaking underneath. The receiver would have to go over two defenders to get the ball which was underthrown to begin with.
i dunno man…
i dont *like* it, but i don’t really think it was *wrong*.
i think they could have called the 5 yard penalty for illegal contact or holding or something like that and no one would be arguing anything. Would give the Pats a first down, but not at the 1 yard line. They’d still have to try again for the TD from a distance.
From what I saw on the replay, the receiver was prevented early in the play from adjusting to the ball. The defender illegally shielded the receiver blocking any chance.
By the time the ball became catchable, the receiver had been forced out of the play. So, from where I sit, there was no chance of a “Cooper-like” adjustment to the ball and thus this was PI. Also, I might add that the defender never once turned to the ball, he shielded the receiver for a number of yards.
A roseman by any other name would draft as sweet.
This needs more up votes.
I see Roseman as a guy who can get deals done, who is very quick to understand the cap, financial, and cost-opportunity implications of any move the team makes, but works better with guys that have superior football knowledge to his own who can advise him in that regard.
Which, really, is exactly what you want in a GM. The scouts find the players, the GM gets them and the coach makes them a team. Seems like the Eagles have been hitting in all three phases lately.
bizarro world Drew Rosenhaus
Re: Public Truth v. Private Truth v. Courtroom Truth v. Unknowable Truth
How’s Roseman doing?
There’s hardly a more esoteric question that could be asked on a philosophy examination about the meaning of “truth.”
The answer about Roseman is elusive at best. It depends on so many facts to which we have no access. Facts need to be sifted and evaluated based on the source. Facts that need contemporaneous objective corroboration.
We could start with the fact that we have no idea what Roseman’s role was in the 2010-11 drafts. Nor do we know exactly what Roseman’s role was in the 2012-13 drafts.
Yes . . . we’ve all heard/read what Jeff Lurie said after firing Reid. And we know Roseman has the title of GM.
But Lurie’s comments were ambiguous and, it’s not unreasonable to say, very self-serving. The comments may be less than accurate. Without hearing from others (inside and outside the organization), seeing documents, and debriefing the participants, we actually have no idea.
One thing you probably could bet on is if Lurie and Roseman have a falling out that ends up in arbitration in front of Roger Goodell, those famous post-Reid comments will not mean Roseman (i) was against every bad choice, (ii) had ID’d a better player than the one taken, and (iii) is responsible for nearly every good personnel move. No. They’ll have a far more nuanced meaning.
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Cedric Thornton’s a good example of how elusive the truth is here. He was signed in 2011 — before Roseman, by Lurie’s own account, took over all the good decision-making. So was Thornton a Reid guy? A Washburn guy? A Grigson guy? Some other scout? Or Roseman?
The fact is we have no idea what Roseman’s role was in the scouting, rating, signing, practice-squading, and retaining Thornton. We only know what the Eagles organization — including Roseman — have put out, said, or implied.
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It’d sure be great if Lurie opened the files and let some wiseguy lawyer, like me, spend a month investigating internally and interviewing folks externally.
It’s also be nice if the Eagles had a whistleblower who could leave Novacare with a cache of revealing evidence. But I suspect the Eagles’ security is better than the National Security Agency’s.
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Sorry to rain on the Roseman parade.
I get that, as GM, he’s now constructively responsible for all the personnel moves . . . even though, long before Roseman leaves the stage, scouts and assistant GMs would be fired.
Beyond that, I’m not willing to crown him with a laurel wreath without knowing more — and from sources not named Lurie/Roseman/Kelly or employed by the Eagles.
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NOTE: This is not Roseman-Hate. We cannot see behind his curtain. Whereas with Kelly, at least we can see on Sundays what’s happening on the field.
There’s no way to know the truth here. That’s all.
Actions speak louder than words. Reid was fired. Roseman was promoted.
No, you are not going to get transcripts of the earlier draft discussions, but I’m not sure why you would need them. I seriously doubt Lurie analyzed the situation and decided, “We let Roseman choose players over Andy Reid’s advice and those decisions bit us in the ass, so I guess I should fire Reid and give Roseman full control.”
Lurie could have easily fired Roseman along with Reid and brought in a new GM. He didn’t.
The only point you seem to be making is that Lurie fired a guy who was the face of the franchise for 12 years and kept a young guy to hold the GM title.
Ok.
But I don’t really think you answering my point — which is we have ZERO idea what role Roseman’s played or plays.
If you think the firing of Reid proves that Roseman is responsible for every good personnel decision in the past 4 years, I think that’s a stretch.
I form my opinions of Roseman based on the things he says, publicly. That isn’t a lot to go on but you can tell something of what kind of guy he is.
ICD:
That’s a bridge too far for me. A professional hazzard, maybe.
It’s only a tentative opinion, of course.
But, I think some things are obvious. He’s very smart. He is doggedly persistent. He was skilled enough in certain areas to make Joe Banner obsolete.
As far as football decisions, we know a lot less.
He has a weekly radio appearance:
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/personality/the-howie-roseman-show/
Are you a prosecutor? You seem to hold more of a “Guilty until proven innocent” opinion than I would expect from a defense attorney…
I think any lawyer operates under a rather stronger version of “trust, but verify”. (Married to a civil practice lawyer and have PD brother-in-law)
This seems more a case of “mistrust, unless verified.”
Right, isn’t that what I said? 🙂
Great points. If I remember correctly, Washburn was in love with Thornton. I don’t know if he was responsible for the signing though.
Can’t disagree with any of that.
I get that, as GM, he’s now constructively responsible for all the personnel moves
But isn’t this really what we’re limited to and what we should focus on?
I mean, the whole organization, scouts, coaches and whoever collaborate to set up the draft board and make the selections. Howie’s running the show. So, it’s not like he gets all of the credit for every good pick any more than my boss deserves all the credit when I make a program run 50% faster. But there is credit due for setting up the organization, choosing the right people, and there is credit given to him as the proxy for the organization and process as a whole that appears to be doing such a good job the last 2 years.
I think Roseman’s success is not that he’s a gifted evaluator of football talent, but the fact that when told about football talent, he went out and got the eagles players his coaches and scouts advocated.
As bad as Asomugha was for us, he was the premier CB a couple years ago in FA, and the Eagles came out of seemingly no where to snatch him up. Ditto for other high profile FA’s.
“On paper”, the Howie team brought in some encouraging guys and signed some real cap friendly deals. Players were not complaining about the Eagles being cheap, and we got decent long term deals with our stars like McCoy and Djax.
Not saying you feel this way AC, but do you think that some of the Howie hate may be due to him not fitting the “image” that a football GM typically has? Does he sound to “whiney” or “lawyeresque” from his press interviews?
How does Roseman get credit for Thornton’s signing on May 1, 2011 . . . but not the responsibility for drafting Watkins and Jarrett on April 29 and 30, 2011?
Because Lurie hinted that Reid and Banner — and maybe Ryan Grigson, too — are responsible for every bad decision before Kelly came here. But Roseman was just a man outnumbered, fighting the good fight?
Doesn’t add up. By a lot.
Since its impossible to know which exec was pulling for which player in each draft we can’t know for sure. One thing we do know is that since Laurie rewarded Roseman and shuttled the other two guys, we’ve had back to back very strong drafts with Roseman at the helm. So IDK which of the guys we took that Roseman was responsible for but, I’d say its safe to say that he probably took more of the hits than the misses.
SH:
You’re comment is exactly what I’m driving at in my own previous comment.
Not that I disagree with you. Only that we’re all left engaging in lightly informed speculation.
Great comment, by the way.
If i’m allowed to speculate a little here, since we will probably never know the truth.
Everything about Danny Watkins just seems like a Andy Reid pick, just like I think Andy had a lot of the “blame” for the Jason Kelce pick later. One worked out, one didn’t, but both players seems like Reid players to me.
Regarding the Jarrett pick, it seems to me like Howie was told from the coaching staff, not just Reid, to get a specific type of Safety, a tackler. It might have been Rosemans pick, but I tend to think he was given a task to solve and did it the best he could. In the end, if you have a square hole, a circle will only fill it to a certain extend. Roseman might have tried to fill a square hole on our roster in with a draft class that only offered circles.
The 2011 was an odd one full stop, with it coming before Free Agency, and with no idea when the lockout would end or what Cap situation would look like.
There was a lot of reaching and poor choices made by a lot of teams.
Thats a good point too
Jarrett had “Reid pick” written all over him: a reach from a local college, a guy Reid saw play a few times and fell in love with him.
As long as we’re doing well right now, I’m willing to give Roseman the benefit of the doubt. I haven’t seen any evidence at this point not to.
Another thing to keep in mind regarding players is coaching. Nate Allen was one of the most hated players last year (and at the start of the current season), and now people have started mentioning him without using the words “roast in hell” or “why god why”. There are often other reasons for a player’s success besides living up to a pass/fail grade when they first get out of college.
Lurie said they went back and looked at who wanted what player, scouting reports etc and according to him Howie scored the best. Take it with a grain of salt, but until 2011 Reid had the main power in the draft room.
We’re all familiar with what Lurie said.
All I’m saying is that comment alone is not nearly proof enough to conclude Roseman is the guy who’s made every good personnel decision for the Eagles the past 4 years.
Moreover, Lurie did NOT say that Roseman made all the right calls.
All Lurie did was leave it to the listener to make that conclusion for him.
That distinction means a lot to me.
Do you like Chip Kelly as head coach?
I think Howie deserves a lot of credit for convincing Chip to come to Philly.
In all honest credit for Ceddy probably goes to a scout. It’s the end of the draft and the UDFA’s that scouts really start to “pound the table” for the players they have fallen in love with. Make a fuss early and you are going against the board, your going to be told to shut up. Even in the middle rounds, if the player you beg for the team to pick busts its not a good look. But when its the final few guys and the talent remaining are all very much lottery tickets, scouts are typically allowed to be a bit more vocal.
How much “drafting power,” does Howie have? That’s the biggest question. Between 10 and 11 drafts, the players chosen, just attribute wise were nothing like the 13 draft class… So is Howie just a “wheel and deal” guy or does he actually scout and make picks?????
Tough to give credit where you don’t know who is doing what I guess… We are in an exciting phase right now. We’re mediocre, but the right kind of mediocre. Like adding a few players here and there and we’ll be young and awesome again mediocre!!!!
10 and 11 was AR. In 12 and 13 they changed the process and Howie now have all the power in FA, trades etc.
That’s certainly the story Lurie told.
Yea, in 12 I heard it was all Reid. He had sole power. I don’t buy that Howie has all the power now.
I still think the Sop signing was a darn good one. Cederic Thornton was on the roster and we thought he might be able to play NT. Dixon was here but he had largely been a disappointment and never played NT in the NFL. Sop was proven to be at least serviceable in a similar scheme over a long career.
No one expected big things from him. The contract he got didn’t indicate the Eagles expected anything more than they got. He was a stop gap and insurance policy from day one.
They drafted Logan high for a reason. Square turned out to be a pleasant surprise. They moved on to develop the young talent here in a “rebuilding” year and got a return on their investment.
Flawless? I think so.
I still think, we should take Kuechly instead of Cox last year
He was taken well before our pick…
I think the answer is pretty simple.
Howie has made as many good moves as questionable moves.
Any GM will be both right and wrong. Just have to be right more often than wrong. It comes with the territory.
The book on Howie is still out. If in 2-3 years the Eagles still can’t compete because of lack of talent, then he’s in jeopardy. That doesn’t seem to be the case though.
The days of Bryan Smith, Jaiquan Jarrett, Danny Watkins seem to be over after Banner left.
Banner made some really bad decisions on his way out.
Brian Dawkins should have never left. Arguably could have won NFC championship against Cardinals with Dawkins in 2009. I believe it.