Tweet
Kelly in control
As someone quite familiar with the Eagles, I find the power shift in their paradigm to be quite intriguing. Facing an organizational crossroads, owner Jeffrey Lurie had to satisfy two of the most important people who were clearly in conflict, while avoiding (for now) more drastic consequences.
Howie Roseman had risen through the ranks over the past 16 years, adding skillsets along the way to earn Lurie’s complete trust and support. I have seen it up close: I consulted for the Eagles in 2009, negotiating the Eagles’ player contracts and assisting on NFL strategic issues, when Roseman was being moved from the financial side to the player personnel side. Five years later, he is now moving back solely into financial side, with an elevated title and important contract security through 2020.
Howie worked tirelessly in scouting, determined to prove to skeptical colleagues that a perceived “salary cap guy” could excel at player personnel. (I have seen the scouting bias against those from the cap/contract side, although I personally never had an interest in scouting.) Now player evaluation responsibilities, which Howie seemed to relish, are being transferred to an incoming employee who will be under Chip Kelly’s supervision.
As to Kelly, I have called him the most important team acquisition—player or coach—in the NFL in recent years. He is a change agent for a profession in dire need of one; I give Lurie (and Roseman) immense credit for having gone outside the traditional box of interviewing current coordinators of other teams (which the teams in hiring mode are doing now) and bringing in Kelly starting with the 2013 season.
Multiple teams are now studying Kelly’s methods—although most won’t admit it—not just on game days, but also in preparation. Lurie did what he had to do to: 1) reward the loyalty, dedication and institutional knowledge of a longtime friend and trusted executive, and 2) answer the concerns of the team’s special talent, the team’s differentiator who is able to impose his will on the structure of the organization.
Roseman, to his credit, made many solid personnel moves in the drat (Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks, Jordan Matthews) and free agency/trades (Connor Barwin, Darren Sproles, Malcolm Jenkins). Thus, the change appears to be less about results than it is about a personal dynamic with Kelly.
Perhaps Roseman and Kelly will stay with the Eagles for a long time, but Lurie’s worry should be that whatever communication they had—or didn’t have—will now become more guarded and filtered as it goes through another channel. The hope for the Eagles’ organizational structure is that two silos of the building avoid developing the kind of relationship that leads to internal dysfunction.
Stay tuned.