Howie Roseman has a chip on his shoulder the size of the Rocky statue.
Even after winning the NFL Executive of the Year award in 2017 and again in 2022 and finishing a very close second to Lions GM Brad Holmes this year, even with his team about to make its third Super Bowl appearance in the last eight years, the chip ain’t going away anytime soon.
When you’ve dealt with the lack of respect from your peers and the media that Roseman has over much of his career, well, you never forget the way people treated you and talked about you.
I realized that seven years ago as I passed Roseman on the way out of the Eagles’ locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis following the Birds’ 41-33 win over Tom Brady’s New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII.
It was 90 minutes after the game and Howie clearly had had his fair share of victory champagne. Without breaking stride, he looked in my direction and said, “You can’t rip me anymore. We won the Super Bowl.”
That’s when I really realized how deep the scars ran from all of those years of being regarded – or rather disregarded -- as a “non-football guy.” In the moment of his greatest triumph, all he could think about was the people who had disparaged him along the way.
The fact that Howie never played organized football shouldn’t necessarily have been a mark against him. But it was.
While other sports like baseball and basketball long ago opened their arms and front-offices to numbers geeks and lawyers and others with limited or no playing experience, football was, for many years, different.
The evolution and popularity of analytics has changed that to a certain degree. But there still are a lot of football people who sneer at guys like Roseman who “never played the game.’’
“You can’t control that narrative,’’ Roseman told me several years ago. “When you look at it, running a team and making decisions, you’ve got to get a lot of information.
Howie Roseman has survived early challenges to build three Super Bowl rosters. Photo by Andy Lewis.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be around a lot of good people who did play, who did take the time to sit down and talk about what they’re looking for in the position. The only way to answer all of those questions (about his ability) is to put together a good team and win.”
Roseman has done that. Not once, not twice, but three times now. A man who just 10 years ago was demoted by Jeffrey Lurie after losing a power struggle to then head coach Chip Kelly, now is one of the most respected front-office czars in the NFL.
Perfect? No. His 2020 decision to take Jalen Reagor over Justin Jefferson will live in infamy. But evaluating football flesh is an imperfect science. Every scout and personnel executive makes mistakes. The key is keeping them to a minimum. And he has.
The job he did building the Eagles team that will face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX on February 9 has been absolutely remarkable. Frankly, he got robbed when the PFWA gave the Executive of the Year award to Holmes for the second straight year instead of him.
Drafting the two young corners – Quinyan Mitchell and Cooper DeJean – who have been such big factors in the Eagles’ defensive turnaround this season. Making the ballsy decision to sign a 27-year-old running back with an injury history – Saquon Barkley -- to a three-year, $37.5 million contract.
Signing the steal of 2024 free agency, linebacker Zack Baun. Bringing back safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson.
He ignored all of the raised eyebrows and did the whole Georgia Bulldawg thing in the 2022 and 2023 drafts with Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith and Jordan Davis and Nakobe Dean and Kelee Ringo.
Found a capable center replacement for Kylie Kelcie’s husband in Cam Jurgens.
Drafted valuable backups like rookie edge rusher Jalyx Hunt, defensive tackle Moro Ojomo and versatile offensive lineman Tyler Steen.
A graduate of Fordham Law School, Roseman started with the Eagles in 2000 as an entry-level salary cap intern and staff counsel, and eventually persuaded Andy Reid to give him a job in the Eagles’ personnel department.
He worked hard to learn everything he could about team-building and evaluating talent from Reid and the people in the Eagles’ personnel department. But when he became the league’s youngest general manager in 2010 at the age of 34, well, let’s just say there were a lot of people around the league who wondered what Jeffrey Lurie was putting in his coffee.
When he got demoted five years later, a lot of the same people said I told you so, including a guy who worked in the Eagles’ personnel department with Roseman for six years, ESPN football analyst Louis Riddick.
“The people who are doing what they should be doing are doing what they should be doing,” Riddick said after Roseman’s 2015 demotion. “And the people who shouldn’t be doing what they were doing are no longer doing it.”
That was Riddick’s not-so-subtle way of saying Roseman never had any business running an NFL football operation.
It should be pointed out that Riddick wasn’t the most objective person in the world when it came to Roseman.
Roseman had beaten him out for the Eagles’ GM job in 2010 and later was fired by Howie in 2013 after three years as the team’s pro personnel director. So, he had an ax to grind.
The Eagles made their fair share of personnel mistakes during Roseman’s first few years as GM – Danny Watkins, Marcus Smith, Jaiquawn Jarrett, Curtis Marsh.
But they also made some good moves, drafting Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, future Hall of Famer Lane Johnson and Zach Ertz. Guys who had key roles in the Eagles’ 2017 Super Bowl run.
Roseman used his time away from the Eagles’ GM throne in 2015 to do some self-scouting. He came back smarter and a tad less arrogant. But only a tad. He recognized his weaknesses and hired experienced advisors who could help him minimize those weaknesses.
“The key thing in scouting, and Howie is good at this, is you have to keep an open mind and you have to be willing to have discussion and debate and say, ‘OK, let’s sit down and look at the tape together. What did you see? Here’s what I saw,’ Tom Donahue, who spent nearly a decade as a senior advisor to Roseman, told me once.
Roseman’s willingness to listen to the people around him never was more evident than last March before the Eagles signed Zack Baun. Baun, an unrestricted free agent, had spent four years in obscurity with the Saints. Was primarily a core special-teamer and backup edge-rusher.
Had played just 660 defensive snaps in four years. The Saints didn’t even try to re-sign him.
Roseman went to defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and told him he was thinking of signing Baun. Said he thought Baun could be a decent special-teamer and part-time edge rusher. Wanted to know what Fangio thought.
Vic watched the tape of Baun, watched his movement patterns, and saw something different. Something much more valuable. “When I evaluate players, there’s no checkbox, no things to check off,” Fangio said in November. “You just watch the tape, watch the movement patterns, watch the player play. After I watched [Baun’s tape], I said I think he’s an inside linebacker.”
That was good enough for Roseman. He signed Baun, Fangio moved him to inside linebacker and a first-team All Pro and was born. The Eagles don’t make it to the Super Bowl without Baun.
So, the chip on Howie’s shoulder still is there. Will always be there.
And that’s good. *
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