PHOENIX − It was a little more than two years ago when Eagles chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie announced that the Eagles were entering “a transition point.”
The Eagles had just completed a 4-11-1 season. The head coach in Doug Pederson was fired. The quarterback in Carson Wentz was traded soon after.
And let’s just say general manager Howie Roseman wasn’t in a great position, either.
That makes this Eagles’ turnaround remarkable as they’re getting ready to play the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Sunday. Roseman, of course, has deservedly received a lot of the credit.
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That was evident back in November, before a game in Houston, when fans held up a sign saying, “Howie, We Forgive You.” Roseman yelled back, “I’m (expletive) forgiven for your first (expletive) Super Bowl?”
Then he added another expletive.
But back in January, 2021, Roseman wasn’t getting much praise. In fact, many were wondering how he had managed to keep his job.
“I think adversity’s a great tool,” Roseman said. “You can say that now, but not necessarily when you’re in that moment.”
The moments didn’t seem to be getting much better when the Eagles hired a first-time head coach − at any level − in Nick Sirianni, who stumbled through his introductory press conference, with young and inexperienced coordinators on offense and defense.
Or when the Eagles went with a quarterback in Jalen Hurts who completed just 51% of his passes as a rookie in 2020.
Did Roseman expect everything to turn so quickly?
“It’s so hard to get to the Super Bowl,” Roseman said. “I remember at one point after we won the Super Bowl (in the 2017-18 season) my daughter said, ‘Dad, you won one. Tom Brady’s won like seven. I don’t know if you should be that proud about this.’
“I thought, ‘Great, I even get it at home.'”
But Roseman’s daughter’s comment was quite prescient in a way. The Chiefs are in their third Super Bowl in five seasons. They reached the AFC Championship the other two years.
The Eagles combusted after winning their Super Bowl, trying to keep a veteran team together. Roseman said he learned from that experience. So over the past two years, he stockpiled draft picks, and making better picks, such as Hurts in 2020 and DeVonta Smith in 2021. Plus, the Eagles have two first-round picks this spring.
Roseman was aggressive in trades, adding wide receiver A.J. Brown and safety Chauncey Gardner-Johnson. He went after free agents on defense in Haason Reddick and James Bradberry.
And he kept a core group of veterans together in center Jason Kelce, right tackle Lane Johnson and defensive linemen Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham. Then he added veteran defensive linemen Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh midway through the season.
All of it was done to turn the Eagles into a team like the Chiefs, contending for a championship every year, or the New England Patriots before that.
But two years ago, it just seemed so far away.
“We’re never thinking, ‘Hey it’s going to take two, three years,'” Roseman said. “We’re trying to get as good as possible as quickly as possible … And sometimes you have to get a little lucky with some of the things that happen.”
Roseman mentioned how the Eagles recovered from a disastrous 2012 season, when Andy Reid was fired after the Eagles went 4-12. The Eagles used the 2013 draft to add franchise legends in Johnson and tight end Zach Ertz and made the playoffs that season.
Then in 2015, after the Eagles again changed coaches, Roseman made two trades to move up high enough in the draft for Wentz. Two years later, the Eagles won the Super Bowl.
Can they do it again after cratering in 2020?
“Obviously, in 2020, we had more injuries than you can count on your hands and your feet,” tight end Dallas Goedert said. “That didn’t help us. A new coaching staff, you never know how that was going to be. We had new quarterbacks that we were questioning. What was going to happen with our quarterbacks?
“There was a lot of stuff up in the air. But I feel like the more Sirianni got here, and the way he coaches and the way he wants the building to be implemented, I feel like we all knew that we were on a really good path.”
Through it all, the one constant has been Roseman, both good and bad.
Lurie stripped Roseman of his power over personnel decisions in 2015, when former coach Chip Kelly won a power struggle. But Lurie reinstated Roseman after firing Kelly with one game left in that season.
Roseman learned from that, too, that job security isn’t a given, or as he put it: ”I’m not on scholarship.”
“Obviously, I’ve been knocked down a bunch of times,” Roseman said. “And so, for me, it was like you had to be passionate and determined to get here. Sometimes I wish I was able to take my foot off the gas a little bit. But as my wife reminds me, I am who I am, and I’ve kind of dove into it at this point in my life.
“I love having the opportunity to put teams together.”
Roseman’s challenge after Sunday, as his daughter alluded to five years ago, will be keeping this team together. That won’t be easy. The Eagles could have as many as 20 free agents next month.
And Roseman won’t be able to keep them all, especially with Hurts eligible for an extension.
No doubt, Roseman will be aggressive, and he’ll think outside the box. That’s how Roseman rebuilt the Eagles from the carcass of the 2020 season.
And that’ll be how Roseman keeps the Eagles among the NFL’s elite. He might fail, but it won’t be from a lack of trying.
“I think when you go back to ‘15, and basically, you’re kicked in the dirt and you’re ready to see, ‘Alright, this is what it feels like,’” Roseman said. “And you feel that way (because) you have regret over some of the things you didn’t do … It’s a terrible feeling, and I would say the worst part of that is having regret about not doing stuff.
“And so if we do stuff, and it’s aggressive, and it doesn’t work out, I can live with that. If we don’t do stuff because we’re worried about the repercussions of it, that’ll be hard.”
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @Mfranknfl.
