Press Pass: Jeffrey Lurie

guys coming on short notice too. Kind of woke up this morning and said, you know, uh, talked in March extensively about the state of the team, but some of you don't get to the owner's meetings in March, so I was thinking, Okay, a good time to do it. I'm excited share it with the fans. And it's not meant to be a state of the team or anything, just sort of an impromptu thing and have fun like we did last time. Okay, open up to any questions

you guys. Yeah, oh, okay, Hey, Jeff, other than twenty fifteen, how he's been the GM since twenty ten, no playoff wins during that span. What's your evaluation of him going into this year, through this offseason, and what gives you the confidence he's the guy to build a championship. Yeah.

I think how he's done a tremendous job. I have real total confidence in Howe the last couple of years, remarkable franchise changing decisions, and as I've said before, it is not easy to not tank and be able to accomplish the goals you want to make. In the NFL, it's so hard to get quarterbacks and the maneuvering the use of assets the way we did, the identification of the one player that we you know, had a lot of confidence in Carson Wentz at a time when other

teams all needed quarterbacks. That's just one of many many Keith things that Howee, the player personnel department, analytics, everybody has participated in, and the coaches in a big way. Ever since then, it's like been one domino after another in terms of smart moves. Really happy with the additions this offseason, as was last offseason. In today's NFL, and I've said this before, it's not simply having Okay, this is your scout or this is your GM or whatever.

Football operations requires enormous processing and identifying of key data. And if you don't have great player personnel department, excellent analytics department, really good sports science, top notch player development, excellent teaching, you're not going to be the team you want to be, and Howe's primary function is to organize that, to be the final decision maker when it comes to the key moves we make, and also to structure contracts

so that we can maximize our assets. And you know, the way he structured the Sam Bradford contract allowed us to retrieve a first round draft choice and a fourth round draft choice, very hard to accomplish in this league. We also didn't have a lot of assets to be able to trade up in terms of getting Carson and to that number two pick. You know, we were not a two and fourteen team. We were going to be drafting thirteen, I think, And how do you get there?

How do you get up there? We could get to eight. It was a double move, very rare, you know, when you look back on the last couple of years, very impressive performance. And I couldn't have more confidence in how he Jever, Yeah, sure of cover Rob's going to ask, but I'll say ask specifically about, you know, some of the things that how He's done since that owners being, Yeah, shoring up the secondary kind of turning a surplus of wide receivers into a strength or maybe close to building

a strength there. I'm satisfied with that. Yeah, there's the key, and you know, I think it's being philosophically sharp, which is this, can you have take a patient, mid term and long term view and at the same time maximize short term opportunities And that's also not hard to do,

and that's not easy to do in the NFL. So what we've been able to do I think this offseason is really improve with a lot of good young players, position ourselves to be able to have the flexibility to resign every good player we have, and at the same time adding some one year players that are very good players like Alicean Jeffrey and Timmy Journegan, where you have the ability to potentially have their rights, extend them, see

how they are, and go forward that dual purpose. I mean, you know, some franchises, you can see it happening now with this potential quarterback draft choice draft class. They're just

trading away assets and trying to get draft picks. We've taken the philosophy that we can try to find a way to get a franchise quarterback and then try to really maximize both the short term and the long term as best you can and consistently every decision for the short term has been where we don't sacrifice any midterm or long term flexibility. And that was the absolute standard that we believed in and do believe in. So what specifically is the expectation this year for Doug Peterson and

for the team? Okay, the expectation this year is that we have improved the team. Who knows how the season's going to go in terms of injuries, whether chemistry comes together every season to marathon, it's not determined until you really look back on it and what happened and how successful were you. But you know, I think I love the blueprint we have. I think that we are headed in a terrific direction. And look, I think honestly, you're

dealing with a team that's pretty young team. You have some veterans that select, you know, positions like punter and things like that, but and left tackle. But basically a young team that has resigned a lot of players, a lot of the core players, ability to acquire future players will will evolve and have a great, you know, opportunity there to do that. But the key is that we we have the opportunity to compete strongly now and that's

that's what I expect. I expect us to compete strongly, and we're in the second year of a of a very potentially special young quarterback. We don't even know that it. So you look around the league, we're not you know, like all of us. We look around, we see the good young quarterbacks. How they do in their second year, how the teams do in their second year. It's not so much these young quarterbacks don't evolve. I think there's a similarity to the way Marcus Mariota, Derek Carr, Jameis Winston,

you name it. The ones that are successful. You can see year one, year two, year three. My expectation with Carson is he will be better in year two than year one. He'll be significantly better in year three than year two, and he'll be significantly better in year four than year three. Where that's where we're at. The difference in records of the teams with all those you can research it yourself, but it typically, I think, is how

terrific do you surround him? And you know, you have young quarterbacks that join teams and take them to the Super Bowl, But those are teams basically that have top two, top three defenses and whatever we hope to be there. We hope to be there. But uh, that's the rarity. And UM, you know, I see us as a team with an excellent blueprint, great opportunity, terrific direction. But we're

in year two of the plan. Jeff, a former NFL GM recently came out strongly criticizing Doug Peterson in terms of his qualifications and made it seem as if he was under the gun in terms of his tenure. Here you mentioned improvement and how this is going to be a long haul. What's your endorsement of Doug and you will you stay with him and see and see this through. I have a strong endorsement of Doug. I think first of all those comments, I kind of you guys call

it clickbait or hot takes. Uh that that's that's how I saw that. But you know, I Doug think about this. I mean, Doug took over a team that had um some locker room issues with the previous head coach, lost his starting quarterback ten days before the start of the season, and was asked to use our young third string quarterback, had to put together a coaching staff and you know, my personal evaluation of the coaching staff that he put together or inherited, but was open to Inherit is outstanding.

I mean really outstanding. And that is a that's a huge credit because quarterback analysis, locker room chemistry, and the ability to put together a top notch coaching staff, those are three real key ingredients and I think he aced them all. Yes, there's going to be growing pains with any first year head coach. We've We've had that with Andy, We've had it with Chip, We've had it, you know, no matter who it is. I see him as someone

who can keep improving. And he's a listener, he's a collaborator, and I think he has terrific relationships with the players, and you know, the futures in front of him and it's there for the taking. Jeff, would you sign Colin Kaepernick if you had a need at quarterback? And what do you think the owners around the league's responsibility is when it comes to players who are demonstrating in the name of social injustice. It's you know, it's that's kind of two questions in one. Let me just focus on

social injustice because it's a big problem in America. Social injustice, it's a big problem around the globe and anybody who wants to do proactive things to try to reverse social injustice, I'm all in favor of. It has to be respectful. It certainly has to respect the military and the people that serve, the women and men that serve our country, emergency responders. Whoever that is, you've got to, I think,

do it in a respectful way. But I applaud anybody that you know can find respectful ways of trying to use their platform in some way, UM to discuss social injustice. We all need to discuss it. We've all seen it around us. We live in a city that has a lot of it, and it's multiple issues. They're not just you know, they're not racial and simply racial issues. They are. There's there's a lot of economic issues and players have

gritten determination. There's no boundary on how that gritten determination, UM gets expressed. I'm not talking about calling here. I'm just talking about the concept of social injustice in America and elsewhere. And uh, you know, sports is an opportunity to bring people together, and I see it as an opportunity. I applaud you know, um, when players can bring communities together. We see it all the time, and I think it's great. You know, I have no idea, but that's that's you know,

we are completely happy with our quarterback situation. So like every position situation, I mean, if that happened, we'd have to fully evaluate it. With Michael Vick, there was a complete vetting of how is he as a teammate, what is his character, what's his potential, what's his football intelligence? Could he can he be a backup in Michael situation or a third string in that time period. It's a whole series of evaluations. Um So anyway, that's that's how

we'd approach any player acquisition. I don't want to talk about any specific player. Jeffrey, how have you seen Howie Roseman and Joe Douglass work together and why are you confident that partnership can work and be the one to lead this organization going forward. Yeah, I've been incredibly impressed

with the two of them. How he has, you know, I think, been a terrific um manager and really kind of I think, with a lot of self reflection, has become somebody that has organized those multiple departments in a very good way. Attracting Joe, Andy and that whole group has been terrific Joe has just been wonderful to work with, and you know, they seem to be working great together.

And the nice thing about them is I think they can have a lot of open discussion on every issue and and and that's how you reach the best decisions, and that that's what I've seen. It was very happy with, you know, the whole process in the draft this year, and I thought it was very thorough, It was very strategic. We knew exactly at what we would do if X player wasn't there, and it was. It was simply great discussion about what to do in the second round. That

was an upside decision. Obviously the organization hurt the short term, but we thought it was looking forward. We don't expect to be drafting in the top ten for a while, hopefully for a decade or more. And it's hard to get cornerbacks that you rate, you know, in the top one or two in the draft, very hard to get.

So did a lot of research. Howie Joe led the way and basically made the gamble that Sydney can be, you know, the premier cornerback we think he can be and healthy and it's a gamble, but it was something we thought was a good strategy Jeffrey, as an owner in this league. Yeah, as a follow up to Colin Sure, there are a number of people who believe he's been

blacklisted as an owner. How would you, Yeah, Well, I think the definition of blacklist is some discussion amongst people to not hire or not approve or something like that. I've never had a discussion with anybody, so it doesn't work that way. I mean, there's no communication. We're very competitive against each other, the thirty two owners. I don't reveal anything, They don't reveal anything. And you know, there's

no discussion that ever takes place about any player. In my twenty three years in the league, I've never heard any discussion of a player like that. You keep it to yourself and you have your own strategy, and you know, I think it's that's the way it works. Jeffrey. I heard you speak a little while ago about keeping a long term vision while maximizing the short terms. And I know in March you spoke of needing multiple drafts to really get to the point where you have the team

you want. But now that you run the threshold of the twenty seventeen season, is this a playoff team. Oh, I think so much happens in any given season that you can never say that. I mean I've never in twenty three year, three years, even if coming off all those multiple NFC nfcast championship games and NFC East titles and all that, I've never come and said, you know, oh, we're obviously a playoff team. It just doesn't work that

way in the NFL. I mean, look at last year, Uh, what what was his Atlanta's record going into the season and what was Dallas's record going into that season? Last year, I think Dallas became the number one seed, and what was Atlanta six and ten going into last year? With with Maddie Ice, who's a very good quarterback. But we'd be sitting here talking about how could you have Maddie Ice and b six and ten and they you know, developed one hell of a team. Uh So it's it's

sort of foolhardy to make any predictions whatsoever. You you mentioned the analytics department. Yeah, um, I don't think fans have a ton of insight into that group. What role does it play in player personnel and how what sort

of the scope of that group. Yeah, we've been, we've been you know, uh, utilizing analytics for a long long time, but um now, I guess it's it's probably more codified where there's just so much data to gain when you do the research, and this is on college players pro players, when you can really correlate and figure out what creates success. All you're trying to do really is beat the odds. Anyone who studies the NFL draft knows the odds of

hitting on draft picks is not high. Whether whatever round you're in first is the highest, but it's not high. And I know Washington Post did a pretty interesting study of the draft over the last was at ten fifteen years, and it was pretty interesting and very accurate. I think it's it's so all all you try to do is bring analytics, medical, everything together psychological to try to up

your odds. So if the odds in a fourth round are twenty one percent of a team ever getting a player that can start for five years, you're trying to get it to thirty percent or forty percent or something like that. That's the only way to you know, improve your performance. And that's so analytics, I think increasingly around sports is very important. But it's a tool, that's all. It is you know, if you're looking at Carson Wentz, we do analytics, but it took a lot more than

analytics to decide that we were going to select Carson. Hey, Jeff, Um, if I could follow up with something about Kaepernick when you said you applaud anyone who respectfully find respectful ways, you know, to have their platform. Does kneeling for the national anthem? Does that? Is that respectful to you know what? I? Yeah, I don't think that anybody who is protesting the national anthem in and of itself is very respectful. If that's all their platform is is to protest the national anthem,

then what's the proactive nature of it? Okay, it's it's sort of but I think we sometimes can misinterpret what those are and uh, you know, I've talked to Malcolm Jenkins about it, and uh you know, I think, um, there's he's involved, very involved in our community here, and uh that's that's my involvement with Malcolm. It's it's what can you do as a player, um, to be involved in the community, whether it's social injustice, whether it's autism,

you name it. There's opportunities to really be proactive. We as a franchise, try to be as proactive as you can be as a sports franchise, and we hope we'll get more and more proactive, um, you know, and particularly on issues that we think are company wide, like autism and things like that. So, UM, I just you know, I think it's all about respect. It's respect and uh, anyone you know I think doesn't have respect for the

servicemen that support the country, UM loses me. So it's like very important to show respect for the flag, for the anthem, but it can be misinterpreted that certain people are not showing respect. We got to get to the bottom of what are they trying to accomplish and are they being proactive in the community and what are they doing? And that's you know, I think you got to take a more holistic view of it. Jeff. When when Jason Peters got his extension earlier a few months ago, he mentioned,

I said, you guys were best friends. So just curious about what your relationship is like with him, and have you changed the way you try to be in relationships with or your relationships with players over the years. Knowing that it is a business and you guys come and go, well, you know, first one, Jason Jason I are very close. Um. I have unbelievable respect for him as a player and as a teammate as a person, and we just you know, we've had a close relationship for a long time. I've

had close relationships with so many players. I don't think I've changed my philosophy on that whatsoever. It's um it's sometimes really hard when you have to trade a player recently John Dornbass. He's like a family member. But you know, it's it goes with the territory. You try to become as real and genuine as you can be with your fellow teammates, your players, your partners here. You're all in

this together. And I've never shied away from it. I've been, you know, as you may or may not know, close with a lot a lot of players, a lot of coaches, and you know, maintain that friendship where regardless of whether they're still an Eagles family or not. But um, so, no, there's been no change, And I love Jason. Jason's just very special. Treffer. You've talked a lot about draft well in the value in terms of team building and building

the talent around Carson Wentz. This offseason, the decision to bring in guys like al Shan Jeffrey lager Blond on short term deals. Is there any concern about any upeval moving forward given the salary cap, about keeping those guys and finding that balance of building around the quarterback that you're ultimately going to have to extend to a long term deal. It's well said, it's a balance. But I mean al Sean provided the opportunity to get a young player.

You know, if all show them were thirty three or something, we probably would have had very little interest in doing a one year deal like that. This was a twenty seven year old, very good, young receiver that we thought could be something that we would potentially be able to resign. We never signed anybody that we couldn't potentially resign going forward.

That was the standard. If there was somebody that was only going to be here and he was twenty seven and we couldn't resign him, why do that, you know, give up assets or give up a significant cap room or something thing like that. Yeah. Any more thought to a pitting for a Super Bowl? I know you mentioned that when they were in New York bidding for a Super Bowl. Yeah, I'd love to. I mean, I really want to get the draft again. We can talk about

the draft. The draft was one huge Philly success. You know, personally, it meant a lot to me. I love showcasing Philly across the country. I tell people wherever I go how incredible our fans are. But you know, they're fans of other teams. There's owners I talk to you about it, but they have their teams. It's very special here. It's it's incredibly special to own a team, and it's incredibly special to have this fan base. And the draft kind of showed it to the rest of the country, which

I loved. I think it was great economically for the city, and I hope the city in the NFL can you know, come together and bring another draft to Philly. Super Bowl wise, it's a lot more difficult. You know, if we were able to build a retractable dome stadium, I think we would have had a Super Bowl by now. It was attempted in New York. It was successful, but it's it's it's not something I think the league is, you know, plotting to repeat. It may happen, but it's it's it's

more iffy. Yeah, Obviously, Howie and Doug report to you, But what's your level of involvement on a day to day basis in terms of the decisions in the dynamics within the building. You know, um, as I said, I ask a lot of questions. You've known that I engage with them all the time. Great relationship with both Howie I probably uh, I don't know, talk to a couple times a day at a minimum at different times because we're dealing not just with players, We're dealing with the

whole football operations, you know. So the technology, we want to be at the forefront of every form of technology that can give our players or coaches a better resource. We're constantly looking for what's what can give us a leg up on everything, So we're talking about all that kind of stuff. Doug as you know, very genuine, friendly person that's easy to talk to. I can easily ask him, and he can ask me, and and I want to share experiences I've had in the league and with other

coaches and whatever. Just want to be a support system. You know. There's not a lot of critical decisions that get made in those conversations, but it could lead to, you know, critical decisions and strategies that we form for the draft or free agency. So and then you know, you'll have the coach will go over his game planning for a future game, and uh, it's I might have some questions and uh, it's not anything out of the ordinary.

It's just being all part of a collaborative effort, part of a collaborative effort and a good situation if I up, Is that any different that then it's been under pre you said coaches, No, not really. Um, well it's always had that with uh, with pretty much the key football executives. Um, it's just uh no, very very genuine previous coaches and each other. You don't go over game plans. You just go over you know what, what are what are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent, and uh,

you know that's that's about it. That's it's not not you're not going over detailed game plans. That's that would be a waste of their time. With me, it's it's more like, Uh, I think we can attack this player. This is a Mitch mismatch. I want to go after Um. Uh, you know this defensive coordinator is new at that team. This is uh, we look at film from X, Y and Z, try to evaluate him see how it applies to the personnel they have, um like for example this

week on the Redskins. So it's, uh, you know, it's it's it's really it's kind of uh good stuff, but it's it's not meant to take up a lot of time. I really believe in having their coaches spend their time trying to defeat the team we're playing and not discussing a lot with me that you said that you can't foreshadow the playoffs. What's up? You said you can't foreshadow whether the team is going to make the postseason or would anything other than the playoffs be a disappointment for

you? You You know what, thirty one teams are going to be disappointed. That's the way it works in this league. We all have the same goal. Thirty one teams want to win the super Bowl. Thirty two teams want to win the Super Bowl. One will And if you talk to any of the thirty one of us, we're going to say we're disappointed. That's the way the NFL works. Thanks everybody, Yeah, yeah, thanks