Front Office Update

Posted: June 14th, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on Front Office Update

With Joe Douglas now gone to the Jets, the Eagles decided to announce the changes to their front office.

Let’s take a look.

• Howie Roseman named Executive Vice President/General Manager

• Andy Weidl promoted to Vice President of Player Personnel

• Ian Cunningham promoted to Assistant Director of Player Personnel

• Brandon Brown promoted to Director of Pro Scouting

• Bryce Johnston promoted to Director of Football Administration

• Katie David promoted to Football Operations Director

• Casey Weidl promoted to Director of Scouting Operations

• Max Gruder hired as Assistant Director of Pro Scouting

• Matt Holland promoted to Senior Pro Scout

• Chris Nolan promoted to Player Personnel Scout

• Ameena Soliman hired as Player Personnel Coordinator

• James Gilman hired as Quantitative Analyst

• Ed Miller promoted to Assistant Equipment Manager

• Craig Blake promoted to Assistant Equipment Manager

Okay, so let’s talk about the key moves here.

Roseman’s title may have changed a bit, but he is still the team’s key decision-maker.

Weidl gets a promotion. He will now take over the Joe Douglas role. Weidl has the scouting background to do a good job in the new role. The question is whether he has the people skills to deal with the challenges of the new position. Being a scout and being an executive are two different things.

The Eagles obviously value Weidl so they must believe he’ll do just fine in the new role. Weidl has a strong reputation around the league. Douglas wanted to bring him to New York, but the Eagles didn’t want to lose Weidl.

You may wonder about how fair or how smart it is to keep scouts from leaving. Scouts sign contracts with teams. As far as I know, they can only leave when given a job with roster control (GM, President of Player Personnel, Team President…titles change by team). Teams enforce contracts to have front office stability. It takes time for scouts and coaches to all get on the same page. There is real value in that and you don’t want your evaluators leaving for lateral positions.

I’m sure Weidl is getting solid money from the Eagles so it isn’t like he’s being punished. When his contract is up, he’ll have to decide whether to stay or head off to NY to work with his friend. For now, he’s got a new role.

Cunningham also got a promotion. Douglas brought him to the Eagles in 2017. Here is a good quote on Cunningham from Howie Roseman.

“He is a guy that we hired from the Ravens and I remember talking to Ozzie Newsome (former Ravens general manager) and he said that Ian was one of the guys who had the most potential of anyone he had been with in that organization for a long time,” Roseman said of Cunningham. “He’s got a great way of visualizing a player when he’s evaluating guys, he’s got very strong opinions, very strong beliefs about what players are, and he believes in building a team the same way that we do. We’re really excited for him to take this next step.”

Cunningham and Weidl are the kind of guys you want to keep around.

I don’t think so.

The Eagles listed people that were hired or promoted. Guys like Tom Donahoe, Anthony Patch, T.J. McCreight and Ryan Myers are still listed on the team’s website. They are valued members of the scouting staff. You just can’t promote everyone.

The Eagles have a deep front office. You hate to lose Douglas, but the Eagles have plenty of good people still in place.

*****

This quote from Roseman about Andrew Berry was interesting.

“We knew when we hired him that he would be a big part of what we’re doing moving forward and giving him this opportunity working across football operations and personnel, player development, he’s got experience in analytics. He’s a vital part of our collaborative approach to building our football team,” said Roseman. “He has such a versatile résumé. He was a vice president of player personnel (with the Cleveland Browns) so he’s run a personnel department, he’s run a pro scouting department, he’s run a college scouting department. He’s put together an analytics group and now he’s got a chance to see what we’re doing.”

That is one versatile background. You can see why the Eagles wanted Berry. He is smart, experienced and has had all kinds of responsibilities. You can use him in a variety of ways.

*****

All three were rookies last year. I don’t know if Pederson did this intentionally or those three have all legitimately caught his eye. Either way, don’t make too much of it.

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