‘Alligator wrapped in armadillo skin’: Howie Roseman’s passion has the Eagles’ resilient GM back in the Super Bowl

Howie Roseman has a passion for food. Pick any city he’s traveled to and the Eagles general manager will know the restaurant scene inside and out — the hot spots, the places to avoid, and the local haute cuisine.

He’s a walking Michelin Guide and in NFL circles, one of the go-to gastronomes for fine dining. Ryan Grigson has often been Roseman’s foodie companion on the road. When the longtime personnel department executives eat out, player evaluation is furthest from their minds.

“We critique food more than we do players,” said Grigson, the Minnesota Vikings senior vice president of player personnel. “Us out to dinner together — I don’t think anyone would be able to stomach it. We expect to have the most perfect meal and service every time we sit down. We’ll grade the food like we’re giving a scouting grade.

“But Howie takes it to another level.”

Roseman is a connoisseur of more than just food. Give him a few visits to a new location and he’ll eventually discover its finest hotel. But those are just hobbies and can’t match his profession when it comes to challenging his constantly churning mind.

It is a passion for excellence that defines Roseman as GM and meets his needs to build not only the best NFL team, but the best operation. In the five years since the Eagles won their first Super Bowl, nearly every department under Roseman — from personnel to medical to sports science — has been overhauled.

If the Eagles claim their second Lombardi Trophy on Sunday, they will have done so with a different coaching staff, a different quarterback, and 46 different players than the 53 who were on the roster on Feb. 4, 2018.

Roseman, with the backing of owner Jeffrey Lurie, has been the architect of it all. And while there were questions just two years ago about his staying power following a 4-11-1 season, coach Doug Pederson’s firing, and the Carson Wentz trade that left the Eagles in salary cap purgatory, Lurie’s faith in his GM has been justified.

Roseman wasn’t taking any victory laps the day before the team departed for Arizona. The Kansas City Chiefs and Andy Reid, one of his mentors, still stand in the way. But unquestioned is the 47-year-old’s devotion and drive to execute the only job he’s ever wanted.

“Every day I wake up and I say, ‘What can I do today to make sure that our team’s in a better place and the people around me have an opportunity to be successful?’” Roseman said Saturday. “I don’t feel like I’m on scholarship one bit. I feel like I have to constantly prove myself.

“I think there are some negatives that come with that when you’re that determined and that persistent and that passionate. But I am proud that I’ve been doing this as long as I am.”

Only the New Orleans Saints’ Mickey Loomis and the Seattle Seahawks’ John Schneider have been GMs longer — if Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick are taken out of the equation. No other current personnel head has survived three head-coach firings, but no other one has also won Executive of the Year twice.

“For people in the profession, Howie represents not letting the outside noise define him,” said Grigson, the former Indianapolis Colts GM. “His resilience is what I think is front and center here. He could have crumbled and fallen apart a thousand and one times.

“He’s like an alligator that’s wrapped in crocodile skin and then armadillo skin.”

Grigson worked for the Eagles for eight years, first alongside Roseman and then under him as his director of player personnel. Five years later, Joe Douglas filled that role. Both know what it’s like to work in Eagles-obsessed Philadelphia.

“I think Howie has probably the most difficult job in the NFL because Philly’s tough,” said Douglas, now the New York Jets’ GM. “It’s Eagles 24/7, 365. Things can get negative quickly. And he’s been through the ups and downs and he’s been unfazed through a lot of it.

“If you can’t appreciate what Howie’s done with both Super Bowl teams — and this team is as deep as a team as I’ve seen in a while — I feel sorry for them.”

Roseman, of course, oversaw a three-year regression following the 2017 season. But his greatest attribute may be his ability to rebound from failures. Starting with the Wentz trade in March 2020, when he somehow got the Colts to forfeit what would be a first-round draft pick in return, he has hit on move after move.

Other GMs marvel at his outside-the-box aggressiveness. He’s made his share of mistakes, but not being risk-averse has allowed Roseman to often turn a setback into a breakthrough.

“I think adversity is a great tool,” he said. “I can say that now, not necessarily when you’re in the moment. And I think if you can find a way to use those moments productively, you continue to get better.

“And I feel like I can continue to get better personally. I don’t feel like I’ve hit a level where I’m not learning new things or open to new ideas. I’m not saying that to pat myself on the back, it’s just the reality of it.

“But then I go home and learn that I could do a lot of things better.”

Roseman recalled one time after Super Bowl LII when one of his daughters pointed out that he shouldn’t be so proud of winning it since Tom Brady had seven rings. But the apple doesn’t fall far from the GM, who the day after the parade, had his scouts back at the NovaCare Complex for draft meetings.

It’s that persistence that got his foot in the NFL door even though the then-law graduate didn’t come from a traditional football background. Roseman said he doesn’t know its source.

“I think that ever since I was little I had this direction,” he said. “I don’t know why. I didn’t really have anyone around me. And, obviously, I’ve been knocked down a bunch of times. 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 [Mindy] reminds me, I am who I am and I’ve kind of dove into it at this point in my life.”

It’s hard to argue with the results. In his 13 seasons as GM, the Eagles have a record of 114-95-1 (.545) and have been to the playoffs seven times. In the nine seasons in which he has had final say over the roster, they are 85-60-1 (.583), with six postseason trips.

If the Eagles win a second Super Bowl, he will be the only non-coach/owner GM to win two.

He’s competitive — isn’t everyone in the NFL? — but there may not be an executive who takes wins and losses as personally. Some close to Roseman question how long he allows himself to enjoy the moment.

He wears it and joked about recently watching a replay of Super Bowl LII and how the broadcast cut to his “psychopath self” with a minute left.

In November, a video of Roseman yelling at Eagles fans who held up a sign in Houston that read, “Howie, We Forgive You” briefly went viral.

“I’m [bleeping] forgiven for your first [bleeping] Super Bowl?” Roseman said as he pointed at the fans. “[Bleep] you!”

Roseman smiled after he delivered his message and posed for a selfie with a nearby fan. A few former coworkers who have been on the receiving end of his outbursts said he didn’t appear to be joking. Either way, the fans seemed to embrace it.

“I’m not sure how that would have played in some of the markets I’ve been in, but it was like a one-day story in Philly,” Grigson said. “The fans — they dish it out, but I think it shows that the Philly fans have thick skin. So he went back at them and they probably love him more for it.”

It may also have been an example of Roseman diving further into his true nature. He has always been self-aware about outside perceptions, but also about how his intensity can affect others.

“His passion is kind of a two-way sword,” former Eagles president Joe Banner said. “It’s rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and it’s also kept him going and to have the willingness to be bold and not be driven by a fear of failure.

“Most of us, including Howie, who are really driven and passionate, sometimes that’s a strength and sometimes that’s a weakness. You minimize the effects of weakness by being self-aware.”

Roseman has left his share of “shrapnel and aftershock,” as Grigson called it. But it’s often accepted collateral damage that comes with ascending and staying at the top. It’s also very much a part of being a GM, and still answering to an owner.

The list of colleagues and subordinates left in Roseman’s wake is long. Just this past year, Douglas’ replacement, Andy Weidl, left when he was passed over for assistant GM, and senior personnel adviser Tom Donahoe’s contract wasn’t renewed.

Roseman promoted two non-scouts — Alec Halaby and Jon Ferrari — as assistant GMs. Weidl has since become an assistant GM with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Donahoe’s days may have been numbered when, during the 2021 draft, his perturbed reaction to a Roseman selection was caught on TV.

“I don’t think everyone should live their lives with the idea that everybody has to like them,” Browns GM Andrew Berry said. “Just because people don’t like you doesn’t mean that an individual has done something bad. Some styles just don’t mesh.

“But the reality is that when you have to make hard decisions, people aren’t always going to agree with you when you’re in these seats.”

» READ MORE: Meet the Eagles’ new front office, which is the same as the old Howie Roseman-led front office

Roseman’s a crack-of-dawn worker. He’s in the office early and he’s grinding, himself and others. Douglas is a night owl. It served them well in their three years together, resulting in a title and two playoff appearances.

“A little after lunch he’d go, ‘OK, I’m going to pass the torch to you because your energy’s picking up,’” Douglas said. “When Howie comes into the building he’s rolling. Endless ideas, thoughts, observations. He’s just exponential energy.

“And there’s so many good thoughts and ideas that you go, ‘Man, I never thought of things like that.’”

Roseman’s double trade up for Wentz before the 2016 draft may have been the GM at his most imaginative. In the last two drafts, he’s spun first-rounders into future first-rounders, adding picks while still selecting quality top picks like wide receiver DeVonta Smith and nose tackle Jordan Davis.

Because he’s made more deals than any of his contemporaries, some of his minor moves may get lost. Douglas cited the trade for defensive tackle Tim Jernigan in 2017, when the Eagles and Baltimore Ravens merely flipped third-rounders, as one of Roseman’s most inspired trades.

“He used to always tell me, ‘You can’t be afraid to make a mistake,’” said Berry, who worked for the Eagles during the 2019 season. “Two things happen when you’re aggressive: One, you end up a lot of times being ahead of the competition, and, two, if you make an aggressive mistake, that innate sense of urgency … makes you aggressively fix it.”

Douglas spent most of his career with the Ravens, who normally value their own draft picks. Weidl came from the Steelers, who have a similar philosophy. Both have been successful franchises, but Roseman’s approach reflects his push-the-envelope mindset.

“With his analytical brain he knows the odds for every pick in every round,” Douglas said. “He was really able to convert me to a way of thinking of, ‘Look, these picks aren’t always going to turn into solid gold.’

“If you got an opportunity to get a really good player with a pick that has less than a 50% chance of becoming a starting player, why wouldn’t you do that?”

The Eagles’ long-held philosophy under Lurie, first fostered by Banner and Reid, has been to seek out advantages in nontraditional avenues, from the salary cap to analytics, from sports science to equipment.

Roseman has made multiple changes in the medical departments since the Super Bowl win and for three years a disproportionately high number of injuries played a role in the team’s regression. But the Eagles’ recent relative good health can be attributed to a willingness to adopt new approaches to training.

“They have the lightest practice schedule of any team in the league,” Banner said, “and guess what, they’re as good as any team in the league, if not better.”

» READ MORE: The Eagles believe holding fewer practices leads to fewer injuries

Grigson, who went 49-31 in five seasons with the Colts, said that Lurie’s support even when the going gets tough has allowed Roseman to not have to work from a position of fear. GMs are only human, after all.

But Berry and Banner said that Roseman’s natural aggressiveness supersedes any doubts he may have about job security.

“It’s hard for me to believe that he doesn’t have any fear of Jeffrey’s judgments since he already benched him once,” said Banner, who hired and mentored Roseman. “So I think it’s much more his kind of personality, his belief in what leads to success.

“Kind of that old saying, ‘If I’m gonna do down, I’m gonna go down doing it my way.’”

Roseman came close, of course, to losing it all in 2015. Lurie took him out of football operations and gave coach Chip Kelly control over personnel. Roseman looked for other opportunities, but when the Eagles faltered, Kelly was fired and the GM was reinserted.

“When you get these jobs, you do worry a little bit about job security, and not because of my relationship with Jeffrey at all,” Roseman said. “But I think when you go back to [2015] and basically you’re kicked in the dirt and you already see, well, this is what it feels like. And you feel that way and you have regret over some of the things you didn’t do.

“So from my perspective because I felt that feeling, which is a terrible feeling, it’s now the worst part of that is having regret about not doing stuff.”

Roseman has always been laser-focused, but he came out of the ordeal a different man, to paraphrase center Jason Kelce’s parade speech, and made an effort to dial back on some of his ruthless tendencies.

It made him a better negotiator because instead of trying to bludgeon whoever was on the other end of the line, he made agreements that served both sides. And yet, he keeps coming out ahead, particularly in trades, with many GMs still picking up the phone when he calls.

“A lot of those moves are him getting out in front before someone else has an idea,” Douglas said. “I think teams knew about [wide receiver] A.J. Brown. … I don’t think every team knew that [safety] C.J. Gardner-Johnson was available. That’s just Howie being the first guy to the party.”

» READ MORE: ‘Can’t stand this heat, get out of my way’: Trash-talking C.J. Gardner-Johnson remade himself with the Eagles

Roseman has had blind spots. He’s been at times too loyal to players he’s drafted. He can take the opposite approach on the non-football side and as one staffer recently tried to explain it, “He’ll want to replace a secretary as soon as she doesn’t type fast enough.”

He’s yet to prove that he can build a sustainable championship-caliber team. Few GMs have accomplished as much in the salary cap era. But with 20 players slated to be free agents and quarterback Jalen Hurts likely to receive a franchise contract extension, Roseman’s skills will be tested this offseason.

He’s seemingly found a coach in Nick Sirianni who both matches and complements his passion. There’s a narrative that Roseman often wants to surround himself with yes-men, but his former colleagues said that couldn’t be further from the case.

He wants to be challenged, but only in a one-on-one setting.

“He has that persona that if I don’t help him with what he wants me to help him with, he’s going to basically harass me for hours on end until I do,” Grigson said. “But we give each other brutal constructive criticism … and he’s smart enough to know that sometimes he needs to hear it.”

Roseman appears to be evolving. He admitted that Sirianni’s initial attempts to foster connectedness between them caught him off guard. But they ended up having much in common in terms of their senses of humor and tastes in movies and music.

He said that the coach’s efforts have helped him not take his relationships for granted. Roseman has been able to mend fences with former colleagues who were passed over by the Eagles, like Tampa Bay Buccaneers GM Jason Licht, and even some of his adversaries admit his edges have gotten softer.

Grigson and Douglas, former college players, formed on the surface a Mutt and Jeff-like pairing with Roseman when on the road. But when the former Eagles scouts recollect the countless hours they spent with the GM, both said they think more about the conversations that had nothing to do with football.

“Really our bond is laughs, family, food, and then football,” Grigson said.

Douglas didn’t attend all of Roseman’s restaurant excursions, but he knew if he made it for a meal, he wouldn’t be disappointed.

“It’s always good to get an invite on the road because you know it’s going to be top of the line,” Douglas said. “He does not squander one of the most important things in life, and that’s food.

“He’s looking for the best.”

Always and in everything.