‘I'm a little bit obsessed:' Why Howie Roseman is the perfect GM for the Eagles originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
This was Thursday evening for Howie Roseman. But really, it’s every day for Howie Roseman.
Figuring out ways to make the Eagles better is literally a 24-hour-a-day, 365-days-a-year job for Roseman, the Eagles’ general manager since 2010 … minus 2015.
“I’m a little bit obsessed with it,” Roseman said in an interview Saturday. “On Thursday night, it was 9:30, I went to my son’s basketball game, I came home and I was watching the tape of the Senior Bowl and the East-West game.
“And my wife walked into my office and she’s like, ‘What’s going on right now?’ And it’s like, ‘Hey, we gotta make sure that our offseason next year is good. … So that for me is the most important part (of the job). To be able to look in the mirror, wake up every morning and know I’m giving everything I got to this team, this organization and our fans.”
You can’t argue with the results.
Since owner Jeff Lurie reinstated Roseman into the GM chair at the same time he fired Chip Kelly after the 2015 season, the Eagles have reached three Super Bowls. Only the Chiefs – the Eagles’ opponent once again Sunday – have also reached more than two.
Roseman, 49, has spent nearly a third of his life as the Eagles’ general manager and more than half his life in the team’s front office. The Eagles reached two Super Bowls in nearly half a century before he became general manager, three since he was reinstated.
Other than Jeff Lurie, who’s owned the team since 1994, and probably one-time Penn quarterback Bert Bell, who founded the franchise in 1933 out of the discarded assets of the Frankford Yellow Jackets, Roseman may be the most important person in franchise history. It’s a role he holds sacred, and although it may have taken him a few years to win over Eagles fans, he’s now a folk hero around here.
You simply can’t find a human being better suited for his job than Howie. And because of his track record – six NFC East titles in 14 years, nine playoff berths, three NFC Championships, a Super Bowl win and returns to the Big Game in 2022 and 2024 – he really is general manager for life.
Which affords him the luxury of making decisions for the long-term benefit of the team instead of moves to save his job. Most GMs won’t make high-risk moves because they don’t want to get fired. Howie doesn’t care.
“I’m not going to stop taking risks,” he said. “And at some point if it gets me fired. I’d rather that than have any regrets. I don’t wanna leave this job with regrets.
“I feel like the first time I did that and I feel like since I’ve been back, for better or worse, I’ve done the things that I thought were the right things to do. And they haven’t all worked out for sure. So I think that’s the first part. The second part of that is I love this, I love this. And when we lose, it hurts. When we win, I’m excited.”
When Roseman refers to “the first time,” he means his first stint as GM, which lasted from 2010 through 2014. That’s when Kelly commandeered GM duties, which ultimately led to his firing and Roseman’s reinstatement a year later.
Since then, Roseman has become one of the most successful general managers in NFL history. He’s one of only 14 GMs in NFL history to take the same team to three Super Bowls and one of only four to do it since the inception of the salary cap in 1994. He’s one of 11 GMs to reach three Super Bowls in an eight-year span.
He’s the first to reach multiple Super Bowls with more than one quarterback and head coach since Al Davis of the Raiders.
“It’s all I think about all the time, you know?” Roseman said. “I’m thinking about what we’re gonna do next year in August. I’m thinking about what 2026 looks like, what 2027 looks like every night when I go to bed. So it doesn’t really change.
“I think that’s my role, to enjoy the team on Sundays, but the rest of the week I’m thinking about the next year. And it’s very opposite to what goes on (with the coaches and players). Everyone’s focused on kind of how we’re beating that opponent, and I want to beat that opponent, too. But I’m thinking about the players in the draft, the players in free agency, how we’re allocating our resources, how we’re lined up for a staff member who leaves. And I think that that’s the way that our job is kind of set up.”
This past offseason may have been Roseman’s best yet.
He signed a running back who may be having the greatest year any running back has ever had. He signed a 1st-round bust tackle who became a standout guard. He signed a special teamer nobody else wanted who became a 1st-team all-pro linebacker. He drafted two cornerbacks who became starters on the NFL’s top-ranked defense. He signed another special teamer who’s been playing lights out at linebacker with Nakobe Dean out. He re-signed a 26-year-old safety who’s been even better in 2024 than in 2022.
Don’t look for him to take any bows. He’s already trying to figure out how to build a championship contender in 2025 with less cap space than he had this past offseason.
“I am very confident in our process, but you’re dealing with human error here,” he said in his first meeting with beat writers since August. “You’re dealing with people who are 22, 23, 24, 25 years old who now you’re putting money in their pocket, you’re changing systems, you’re changing cities.
“Nobody is perfect in this process. And I like our batting average. I think it’s good. But that doesn’t mean anything when we get into next year’s offseason. I think there are years that you have more resources, whether you have more cap room or cash to work with or draft picks that give you a little bit more margin for error. I think that’s cyclical.
“Like this offseason is going to look different than last, unfortunately, and that doesn’t mean we can’t have a really good offseason. But those are the moments you strive to find inefficiencies and to take advantage of those. I’m not saying I go into any offseason trying to make it fine. I’m going to try to hit on every pick that we make, I promise. But sometimes it works better than others.
“Just like some players have better years than others and they still have good years, but they’re not great years.
When you look at the Eagles’ three Super Bowl runs, bold moves by Roseman are behind each one.
The offseason before 2017, it was re-signing Nick Foles, acquiring Alshon Jeffery, signing both LeGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi, adding Patrick Robinson, snagging Jake Elliott off the Bengals’ practice squad, signing Corey Clement as an undrafted rookie.
The offseason before 2022, it was trading for A.J. Brown, signing James Bradberry, Haason Reddick and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, re-signing Dallas Goedert, and adding Reed Blankenship as an undrafted rookie as well as bringing in genius defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon.
And this year, Saquon Barkley, Mekhi Becton, Zack Baun, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and C.J.G.J again.
Those are three absolutely slam-dunk offseasons that set up Doug Pederson in 2017 and Nick Sirianni in 2022 and 2024 for massive success.
Three of the Eagles’ seven highest-winning percentages in franchise history came in the 1940s. One came in 1960. The three others? How about 2017, 2022 and 2024.
“I know that the season really starts with the front office and that starts with me,” he said. “And so when we have good offseasons, it usually leads to success during the regular season. And so I think that’s our responsibility and that’s my responsibility and we’ve seen it.
“I mean, the three best years we’ve probably had as a front office have led to three Super Bowls. So when you can see that there’s some sort of correlation … between how well we do our job and the opportunity it allows everyone in the organization to do their job well throughout it, it’s inspiring.
“Obviously, the resources change from year to year and I think an underrated key to getting back here was that we really had resources and (draft assets) in 2022, 2023 and 2024 to allow us to have some flexibility. And those are the things I think about going forward. ‘How can you get more flexibility when you have a lot of good players – deservedly so – making a lot of money?”
Baun, Becton, Oren Burks, Josh Sweat, Kenny Gainwell, Isaiah Rodgers and Milton Williams are all on the final days of their contracts, so there will be some big decisions to make and big contracts to write.
But Roseman will figure it out.
He literally always does.
Think about this: Since Roseman was reinstated as G.M. in 2016, the Eagles have had more Super Bowl seasons (three) than losing seasons (two).
This is a franchise that went to two Super Bowls in 51 years.
One topic Roseman won’t even consider is the Hall of Fame, but it’s out there. Eight of the previous 13 general managers who built at least three Super Bowl rosters with the same team are already enshrined in Canton.
And of the five who aren’t enshrined, Bill Belichick isn’t eligible yet, Kevin Colbert just retired after the 2021 season and Brett Veach – Roseman’s one-time assistant with the Eagles – is still going strong with the Chiefs, who face the Eagles in Super Bowl LIX Sunday at the Superdome in New Orleans.
You never know what’s going to happen, but nobody around the NFL would be surprised if there are more deep playoff runs and Super Bowl trips in the Eagles’ near future. Everything is in place for extended success. A young, talented roster, a coach with the 5th-highest winning percentage in NFL history, an owner devoted to providing Roseman and Sirianni with all the resources they need, and a general manager who is enjoying an astonishing run of success.
So the Hall of Fame is the last thing on his mind right now.
The Senior Bowl probably is.
“I mean, I’m 49 years old,” Roseman said. “I feel like I’ve got a long way to go before my career ends and we take stock of this season, anything we’ve done. Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to do this for a long time because I want to. So that’s where I’m going.
“I see people who are retiring at 60, 65 and they’ve got nothing to do. I feel like I have a long way to go. That’s how I honestly feel.”
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