Press Pass: Howie Roseman

the best of luck as we go forward here. I also wanted to start by thanking our fans the support they showed throughout this season, the energy they brought. Obviously, the results weren't satisfactory for all of us, but wanted to start by saying thank you to all of them. As we look back at where we stood last year. We were sitting here without a second round pick, with no quarterback under contract, with a lot of free agents.

Not only last season, but this offseason, we felt like we had to do things to address that for the future of this franchise. It started with the quarterback position. Being able to move up from thirteen to two and get Carson Wentz was something we were really excited about. We understood with the amount of resources we put into that trade that is gonna be hard to do a lot else. But we also felt there was value in free agency and the draft at the old line position.

By getting some offensive lineman and Brandon Brooks and Whiz in free agency and then coming back in the draft with a third and fifth round pick and getting offensive linemen. We felt really good that we were able to address those two spots. When we look at our team going forward, we had a twenty four year old quarterback. We had a twenty five year old highest paid player. We got to make sure we surround that talent with people who can be here and build with them off the field.

We made a huge edition bringing Joe Douglas here. With his insight, with his leadership, his ability to lead the draft room, his ability to put the free agent board together. We think he's gonna be a huge addition for the staff. He's already added valuable input into what he's looking for in players, what he thinks he can bring to this team, and we can't wait to see what he has in store for us. In March. Questions as far as as as the twenty sixteen season, what's your evaluation of it

and of Doug and Carson specifically well. Starting with Carson, Carson missed the final three preseason games, missed a month of training camp, He was notified he was the starting quarterback eight days before the start of the season. His competitive fire, his intangible skill set, his physical skill set. We couldn't be more excited about the things that he brings to the table. And see what he's gonna do with a full off season, an opportunity to grow here

in year two. As for Doug, you talk about facing adversity. Head coach comes in and our right tackles suspended for ten games, our starting quarterbacks traded eight days before the start of the regular season, and the way the players responded certainly towards the end of the season, you could see how the players felt about him and again just looking forward to him getting better and continuing to grow.

Like all of us in our jobs, you know, it's never satisfactory when we're sitting here having a press conference in January, but the reality is that when we made this decision to trade up for the quarterback, we're gonna build around him. When we resigned Fletch, we knew we had a twenty five year old that we're going to build around and we're gonna stick to our plan. We're gonna be disciplined with our process, and we're gonna do

the right things for this football team. How we having seen the effect Lane Johnson's ten games suspension had on the team, what would your philosophy be, and potentially, you know, trading or signing for another player who has had been spended previously for you know, once or twice. Well, you got to look at each situation individually. With Lane. We know Lane really well. Very disappointing to not have him for those ten games. He's a difference maker when he's

on the field and we need him going forward. You mentioned Joe Douglas. How much has have things changed with him being in the building. How has he made an impact so far? The process changed with him being here. Well, he's made a huge addition to the building. You know. The first thing he did was bring in Andy Widel to have someone who spoke the same language. He's got

tremendous presence Joe and Andy. He's got a way of looking and evaluating players that is different than what we've done in the past, and quite frankly, we needed that. He is full rained to set the draft board. He's involved in every discussion we have about building this team, and I think we'll start seeing the dividends. We saw some of them with our waiver cuts, and I think we'll continue to see dividends as we go through the

off season draft board. Does that mean we'll have the safe or wherever you guys pick or will that still be a discussion when you come up. No, it's a collaborative effort when we talk about who we're picking, and at the end of the day, the responsibilities mine. Oh yeah, this is kind of an unusual year you have coming up in that you don't have the normal cat flexibility. You know how important does that make having a higher batting average? I guess you know, with everything you do

in the off season, no questions. A unique situation for us as an organization. Part of the Sam trade was to get some flexibility back. But we're gonna have to make some hard decisions and do the right things for our team, not only for this year but going forward. What are the positions that need to improve in twenty seventeen for the team to become successful. Well, when we started this last offseason and started to put our plan into place. We're not even close to implementing all of it.

We got a lot of work to do. We're going to stick to our plan, certainly, don't want to give the answers to the test anyone watching this or listening to us. How you gave out a number of in house extensions. How do you look back upon those, specifically the one to Viny Curry. Yeah, when we sat down again last year and looked at the foreseeable future and the opportunities for guys on a roster to be free agents,

we felt like it was like a layer cake. We needed to add to the talent base, not start subtracting to it. Certainly, sitting here now, we could be looking at Fletch, Malcolm Jenkins, Darren Sproles, zach Ertz, among Benny Logan and Whizz to name a few, to be free agents right now. In terms of Vinnie, Vinnie continue to get better in this scheme. He's moved around a lot, He's been in a lot of different schemes. We think he's going to continue to get better. We're really excited

that he's on this football team. If I could just follow up to on the contract extension you gave Lane Johnson kind of projects him to eventually be too left tackle. You face a difficult situation with Jason Peters about whether to bring him back. One do you want to bring Jason Peters back? And two do you want to bring him back as a left tackle at that number considering that Lean's salary starts to increase the first part with

Jason Peters. We started this press conference talking about Brian Dawkins. I've no doubt that at some point we'll be saying the same things about Jason Peters. He has really ingrained himself as a leader of this football team. Anyone who watched us play saw the impact he has on the game. We certainly want to have him back. All you mentioned that Joe Douglas has a way of evaluating players that's a little different than the way you've done it in the past. Can you kind of get a little bit

more specific about what you meant by that. Yeah, I think when we look at the success the Ravens had, and certainly they've won two World championships since the start of the century, what they're looking for in the traits they're looking for in particular, positions fits the way that this city is built too, and we want to find whatever ways there are to improve this team and to improve the quality of players on this team. And I'm really confident that we have the right people in our

Scotty Steff to do that. HELLI if you look at Eric Rowe, he started seven games on a team that went fourteen and two. Why couldn't he play here? When we sat down and discussed the offer, we really started thinking about as we sat at that time, the like that we to sign him to an extension. We want

to build this team with some continuity. We felt at that time that we weren't going to sign him to an extension, and to be able to get that value for him and possibly add someone who would be here for a longer period of time made sense for where we were. He wouldn't be eligible for an extension for two more seasons. You made that determination after one year.

We did make that determination based on the defense that we have, the scheme that we have, and after talking about our corner position with the coaches, we were concerned about getting the same value if it was the same situation going forward. And obviously you can only do with the information you have at the time. How we two players on your defensive line, Connor Barwin who's coming has a pretty large number, and also Benny Logan who's who's unrestricted.

Your thoughts on those two and whether they're going to be back. Yeah, both tremendous players and tremendous people. You know, really fortunate to have both those guys on our team. You'd like to have everyone back, and I think that's our situation here. Certainly want to build along the lines in the D line. Hey, Howe, I know you can't speak generally specifically about contracts, but generally, do you anticipate

approaching veteran guys about taking pay cuts. Yeah, as we look towards putting a plan in place, we got to look at everyone on the team and figure out what the value is. Again, don't want to talk about anyone specifically out of respect for those guys about contract situation, but we got to do whatever's in the best interests of the team going forward. When when you look at the wide receiver position, obviously there wasn't a whole lot

of production from the outside guys, especially going forward. I mean, do you feel like it's necessary to address that position? Both in free agency and in the draft. All it seems like a long time ago. We're leading the National Football League in twenty plus plays and I don't have a delirian time machine to go back in time and get some of those guys back. We have a young group, we have a young room. They need to continue to grow, and it's one of the things, among others, that we

need to look at, Holly. A lot of people have speculated about your cap situation heading into the offseason. How would you equate it to previous years and are you going to have to make a lot of moves to get to the point where you can be active in free agency. It's unusual, certainly since I've been here, to have a more challenging situation. But part of our job in the front office is to look at this over

a long period of time. So as we sit here today, it isn't like the first time that we're kind of looking at that situation and we'll do whatever's best for the football team. Howe less spring Jeffrey Laurie sent a bunch of us kind of scrambling the Google to look up this term arf. Now that we all kind of

have an idea of what that is. Can you show some light on how that's kind of helped the team or what how you exactly implemented that The RFD data ARFU Yeah, I think that what that does is it allows you to figure out your player's speed and compare it to previous speeds to see where they are in terms of practice load. Not sure I'm the expert in that area, but we do have people who handle that for us and kind of dumb it down for people

like me. How you've talked about over here, You've talked about this plan that you guys have with Carson and Fletcher and building around those guys time frame on when you believe this team will be a perennial playoff team and really in play for a super Bowl and things like that. With this plan, you know, we got a

lot of work to do here in this offseason. So as we sit here right now, it's hard to figure out exactly what we're going to be because we don't know what the off season is going to hold for us. We could have a great plan, but it's also subject to other things. We're either picking fourteenth or fifteenth, who's going to be there at that pick house? Free agency is going to go with our own players and players

going forward. But when we look at September and Carson was the Rookie of the Month and Fletcher was a defensive player of the month, that's the kind of impact we need, certainly from those two guys. And one last thing, And as you're making these decisions, you've been here a long time. It's been a long time since this team has won a playoff game. How do you balance with being Haitian and doing the right thing for the long term and this plan versus you know, we need to

start winning playoff games here. Yeah. I think you go back and you look at two thousand and eight when we were in a championship game, and then two thousand and nine and ten and ten and six. Isn't good enough to get home field advantage to compete for a championship. I mean, it's a huge edge to have that buy and so we got to build the team with that in mind. I think some of the things that we've done over the past few years have been to get

to ten and six, and that's not good enough. Howe, how would you evaluate the play of Jason Kelsey and Brandon Brooks this year well, I start with Jason Kelsey and you look at how his peers looked at him. He was a second alternate to the Pro Bowl. He's been a consistent player since he's been in Philadelphia, exceptional athleticism, played really well towards the end of the year, and a guy that's been a true eagle. In terms of Brandon Brooks, he had an incident here towards the end

of the season. I know he's spoken to all of you about that, but you talk about his physical ability and the kind of player that he is when he's on the field, we feel like he's a building block as well. How do you evaluate Thug Peterson as a

rookie head coach? The job he did, Yeah, I think we talked about that when we started with Zach, about just the adversity that he faced, the energy he brings every day to that football team, and just hearing our players talk about how much they love playing for him at something really promising. We're really excited to see what

we have in store going forward. He does a great job with our rookie quarterback and the rest of our team, and tremendous tribute to him and his character for what he went through this year and how the team played for him, how we follow up on what you just said about kind of building to be ten and six how does that manifest itself and how when you look back, what kind of mistakes were part of that, And how do you build to be a championship team as opposed

to a ten and sixteen. Yeah, when you look at a ten of six teams, you can put band aids on some things. And I mean, I think you look at the cornerback position, and what we've done at the

cornerback position is put band aids on things. And it's funny because I don't notice a lot of the articles that are around the building that are hung up, But last week I noticed an article that was from two thousand and three and talked about how the eagles was future was bright because they have a twenty six year old quarterback to start, we have twenty four year old quarterback. We have to do the right things so that when you look around the league, those guys are all taken off,

the team is ready to take off with them. And there's a big difference between competing to make the playoffs and being a wildcard team and getting a buy in the playoffs. How what's your take on the recent trend of college players skipping ball games? Does that knock them

necessarily knock them down a notch? You got to look at each case, situation by situation, and you know, certainly respect the player's decision, and when you get a chance to sit down with them, you'll ask them their perspective, because obviously we can't do that this time. How we both here and elsewhere we've seen the dynamic of the coach GM relationship. What's Doug's role in player personnel and how has that dynamic been going? Yeah? Great, I mean

unbelievable guy, unbelievable energy. He asked a lot of questions about things that we're doing. We asked for his input. We funneled down the information for him and his staff, But we need to know what they need. We need to know what it looks like for them at each position. They do a great job giving us that insight, starting with Doug and then funneling down to the rest of his staff. As a follow up to that, was management involved in all at all in playing time distribution for

players this year? No, that's a total coach's decision. We just to get a little bit more further clarity on the roles that you're going to have versus Joe Douglass. So when are you active? When are you you know, when are you going to be hands on? And exactly what responsibilities fall to Joe and Joe alone. Yeah, he

runs the player personnel department. Um, he runs a player of personnel department, and UM, he reports to me and so we meet every day, UM, a lot of times a day, and he's able to funnel down the information and the thought process that he has with his scouting staff and our job and really my job is to help make good decisions, you know. UM, I think that's something that I could help with with some of the experiences if I have good and bad and really excited for him to put his own spin on it. And

I think that's already started. Oh you mentioned jumping in your Delirian and gone back in time if you could. It's really excited about that. Would you yeah? Would you have from a from a movie? Right? Uh? Would you have no, no, no, that someone actually used that line in a movie exactly one about the jump? Anyway? Um? Would you have released DeShawn Jackson? Um? And then if you were in charge personnel? Would you have treated Lashawn McCoy? These are two guys that had a thousand yards seasons

this year. I cannot talk about any players under contract for another team. Okay, yeah, well, but aren't they still technic? Isn't a Shawan now officially a free agent? Nobody's a free agent until February after the combat? Right? Okay, So what kind of receivers then are you kind of would you would you want per se in free agency if you were going back? My second favorite answer is that I don't want to give any answers to the test.

How what's it been like for you this pist year, being back in this position after short of being up in the side and just the ups and downs that's been back in it. Oh, it was a great perspective um really to be fair. Being on the side gave me incredible perspective so much, how much I valued the relationships, how much I cared about this team. We have a

lot of really good people here. I think one of the reasons we're to keep our priorities aligne and decide that we had to have a quarterback that when we looked on the field, thought that he could stabilize the position for ten years is because you get it out of that day to day mode of how we're going to make the playoffs and get into how we're going to build this team for sustained discuss how we when you look at your rookie class and you know, taking

Carson out of the picture, kind of you got contributions from pretty much everyone else. Wendel, Isaac big v Jalen Mills. How I know some of that obviously was out of necessity, but like, what were you kind of impressions of the way those guys played in the experience they got and how much you can rely on them going forward. Well, it's interesting. Tom Donahoe, who's a huge part of what we do and was a huge help last offseason to this organization, met with the rookies about a month ago.

He asked to meet with them, and he's been around this league a long time, and he just talked about his observations of how hard they work, their determination, their grit, their work ethic. We didn't have a second round pick, we didn't have a fourth round pick, but we really do feel like those guys and Carson to start, are going to be part of a core group going forward. You mentioned the importance of building a team that has the ability to get that buy instead of being a

tenant six team. After the game on Sunday, Doug said that he thought this team was close. What do you think this team is close too? And how do you kind of view what he said and then view where the team is right now? Yeah, I think when you look at how hard the team is playing for him and how many close games were in love that perspective from our coaching staff and our players. We have a little different role here in the front office. You know, there's always going to be things that we look at

and try to get better. But again, you know, we're trying to compete with the best teams in the National Football League. We're certainly not there right now as we stand, but feel a lot better than where we stood last year at this time this offseason, you brought in Yotis and Ron Brooks and Nigel and Tullock, all former guys who played for Jim Schwartz. How much of those acquisitions were Jim wanting those players to bring in and how much was it your own evaluation of what those players

brought to the table. Well, I think first, when you change coaching staffs and you have guys who've played in a scheme and the coaches are describing to what they're looking for, it's easy to go back and watch the tape and see guys in those schemes to kind of get through the moment and for certain positions, that's what we were trying to do last year. But again, you know, our job is to improve in all areas, and we weren't perfect on free agency as a whole. Our bounding

average is never going to be one hundred percent. Unfortunately, we got to learn from that and do a better job as we go forward. I'm gonna try again with Jeff's question in a different way. How challenging has it been to undo some of the things that happened during your predecessors administration? Is GM You know, I think you're just dealing with the reality of the situation. And I could say, sitting up here last year, it was challenging. It was a challenging situation, and it starts with the

quarterback position. We didn't have a starting quarterback under contract. He was a free agent. We were picking thirteenth with No. Two and we sat down and we said if we can come out of this offseason and sit here next season at this time and feel like we had a permanent answer at that position, we're going in the right direction. And so I know it's tough to boil it down to that, but that was how important we thought it

was in that situation to get it. And part of that was the analysis that there was a graying of the quarterback position in the National Football League. We had done a preliminary analysis of what was coming out going forward, and we just felt like it was a unique moment to be able to move up hot way. When you look at building around Carson Wentz, obviously a lot of

knee on both sides of the football. How much of a variable as time, both for your own perspective, for job security, your own perspective in terms of building the team to be able to build a contending team quickly enough and good enough to compete around Carson Wentz and maximize them. Yeah, I want to be clear. I mean, this is not about me. This is about doing the right things for the Philadelphia Eagles, and we have to

be disciplined. We have to stick to our plan, we have to stick to our process, and that has to show up in the draft. I mean, I'm sure that everyone can sit here and write about positions of need. Understand that, but we're going to do what's right when you have some young core players. Ali, given that you're you're looking at this big picture, but and you made the band aid comment, but you also have some immediate

needs wide receiver, cornerback, running back. I wasn't nodding towards the position of journey and I just I get to But so you know, how do you how do you approach free agency knowing that you are taking this big picture approach? Also do have some immediate holes to fill? Yeah, Ideally in free agency you're signing twenty six twenty seven

year old guys who can be part of the core. Unfortunately, teams are doing a good job blocking those guys up as well, So we have to try to balance that and bringing guys here that fit what we're trying to do and understand that there's no way to do everything in one offseason and just look at each situation individually. Hollie, there's been how you talked earlier about is this a

record for consecutive questions? Dark boy, Thanks for clarifying your nods. Also, the degree of difficulty in going for thirteen and three or whatever as opposed to ten and six is obviously much greater, and the risk is much greater, and the I guess potential for success is maybe a little bit less. How do you accept the risk? I mean, in your position where you sit, is risk something you say, Hey, this is part of the job. It might work, We're gonna do everything to make sure we hope it works,

but it might not work. And are you different in terms of your perspective one risk than you were before you had your year off or whatever you want to call it. You did you come back saying hey, I'm more apt to let's just go, no question. I think that when you look at it, it's there are certain things that it's almost impossible to win a championship without.

And I think that when I look back at some of the mistakes I made, they were about just trying to get into the playoffs and believing that once you get into the playoffs, maybe you have a chance every year because it's a shorter field and you can just get high. But really, when you look at the Super Bowl champions over the last decade, for really since the super Bowl is in effect, they all have the franchise quarterback and your easiest way to be a perennial contender

is with that. And to have a guy like Carson makes it feel like you're doing the right thing when you don't do a lot of band aids. And you know Tim talked about band aids. Are there opportunities at some point to do one year stop guy, hold stop gap, hold the forts, sure and ants And you're saying that there won't be any of those, but we got to manage our risk. Oh yeah, you understand. You say it's not about you, but there was a reason why you're

standing up there. How would you evaluate the season you had, Well, it starts with the quarterback position. And I was very vocal internally about the need to have a long term answer at that position and felt like it was the most important thing we could possibly do. I sit up here really excited about the future of this franchise, but knowing that there's a lot of work that needs to be done. We didn't have the same amount of resources that we're used to. You know, we didn't have a

second round pick. We had a lot of guys becoming free agents over a two year period of time. I'm excited about the work our scouting staft did in the draft without a second and fourth round pick, but um, again,

we got a lot of work to do. How does Joe Douglas Douglas if you can give some some specifics on how he looks at players a little differently than you, You know, I think it's easy for us to talk about the players, um, when we were going to five championship games and when they were in the Super Bowl, and just talk about, um, why we felt really good about the players that were on our roster at that time and what they were looking for when they won

a world championship. There's no there's no tangible there is, But how are the uh? The Bradford trade allowed you to oh sorry, It allowed you to recoup some of the picks that you lost in the trade up for Carson. It also allowed you to play him as a rookie, which he wouldn't have done if Sam had stayed. How beneficial has that been to his development? And how has it speeded up the whole process of this club getting good again? Well, the first part about that trade was

the best trades are win win scenarios and Sam. With the season he had and reading the reports about how happy they are with Sam, the Vikings got exactly what they were looking for, Sam Bradford. And for us all the reasons that you outlined looking at it now, we're

huge for this organization going forward. For him to get the experience to be able to go into Seattle as a rookie, you know, to play on the road against the NFC's teams, to play sixteen games, that's invaluable, and for him to not have to do that, you know, next year or the year after. Looking back, really that set us up hopefully for success going forward. How in the past you have really emphasized resigning your own picks, and everybody understands that's a vital part of being a

successful organization. But can you also over value those guys and is it a danger giving them top of position contracts and they maybe aren't top of position players when you know a year or two down the road. Yes, I think there is that danger, and I think that's another one of the values that you have by bringing people outside this organization to look at your roster and to be able to give you different perspective because we're human and there's no doubt that, just like your kids,

you want to see your own players succeed. And so I think we have that balance now to make sure that we have a good way of making these decisions and seeing it through a different lens, because guys like Jason Peters, Darren Spoil, some of your better players are older players because of your cap situation. I mean, this is an obvious thing, But how imperative is it that

you guys really draft well over this next period? No question, And again it's one of the things where you look back and where our draft board was in Januar worry, and when we made some decisions we compromised on guys as opposed to just sticking to the board and doing the right thing, not based on a need this year, but based on who's the best player to be part of a core going forward. And I said to you're very confident that that will not happen again. Thank you.