The coach and the players have to go. But the smoothies can stay.
In a look at the way Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman developed during his year in exile under Chip Kelly, Peter King of TheMMQB.com notes that Roseman’s house-cleaning this offseason wasn’t complete.
The Eagles did keep director of sports science and reconditioning Shaun Huls, who was brought to the team as part of Kelly’s scientific approach, and survived Roseman’s scorched-earth approach.
“Chip brought in a lot of great ideas and great people,” Roseman said. “Shaun and sports science are both examples of that.”
Of course, most of the people are as gone as Kelly is, and Roseman has worked fast to put his own imprint back on the team which was once his and Andy Reid’s. But Roseman said it might have taken time to step back to realize what he needed to do moving forward.
Roseman told King that one of things that helped him was meeting with leaders from other major sports, including the English Premeir League. That one in particular was probably helpful, as he and Kelly never spoke the same language, the way top club teams are often a melting pot of cultures.
“That was so valuable,” Roseman said. “And talking to people in basketball, hockey and baseball helped a lot too. I believe experience is a great teacher. All experiences. In the middle of your career, you can’t often take the time or use the energy to take a step back and really learn about your business. But sometimes that’s the best thing for you in business—to take a step back and learn. I was given that opportunity, and Jeffrey [Lurie, the Eagles’ owner] wanted me to learn as much as I could, and for that I’m grateful. So when this opportunity came up now, I was able to hit the ground running. I’d been thinking about so much of the stuff about building a team.”
He’s obviously been working quickly, dumping bad contracts for draft position, signing a handful of guys before free agency started, and then re-tolling with guys new coaches Doug Pederson and defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz had background with.
But for all that change, there was one he could have made simply out of spite that he didn’t.