Howie Roseman is the smartest man in Philadelphia sports. The trick is making his genius last.

It’s Howie Roseman’s time of year, and the anecdotes about him have been circulating all week, each one something between an origin story and a warning to other NFL executives to be cautious and careful if Roseman happens to call them to talk trade.

Jedd Fisch — the head coach at the University of Arizona, one of Roseman’s roommates at the University of Florida in the mid-1990s — described the preparation that Roseman would put himself through for an NFL draft when he was only dreaming about being a general manager: suit, tie, briefcase, piles of notes and stats, all to watch his beloved Jets pick a tight end they didn’t need. Saints GM Mickey Loomis admitted that he keeps his hands in his back pockets whenever he’s speaking to Roseman — an advisable position, given his recent dealings with him.

Now cutdown day for the Eagles is coming up, and this is when Roseman tends to do some of his best work, finding a hole to fill or a spot to strengthen to inch the Eagles closer to a Super Bowl. In 2017, he found a starting cornerback in Ronald Darby. Last year, he improved the secondary by tapping Loomis to acquire C.J. Gardner-Johnson. Similar situation now. Similar anticipation for his next move.

» READ MORE: Saints GM Mickey Loomis wary of doing deals with the ‘bright’ Howie Roseman and the Eagles

The intrigue around the Eagles between now and 4 p.m. Tuesday isn’t which players they will cut or keep but which player or players Roseman might add. The roster could use talent and depth at linebacker and safety, and we’ve reached a stage with Roseman that still feels strange and unfamiliar to anyone who has spent a long time in and around Philadelphia: Everyone expects that Howie will do something, and everyone expects that it will be the right thing to do.

Roseman’s professional journey will never fail to be one of the more remarkable redemption stories in this city’s sports history. He went from occupying the NovaCare Complex’s broom closet to being regarded as one of the NFL’s consummate brainiacs, and over the last quarter-century of Philly sports history, it’s hard to find anything that compares. Larry Brown and Billy King boldly traded for Dikembe Mutombo and built the 2000-01 76ers, but the joy of that unique team and unique season couldn’t last. Sam Hinkie was an instant cult figure but couldn’t see The Process to its completion. Pat Gillick taught the Phillies how to win, only to step down and turn things over to Ruben Amaro Jr., who was the toast of the town when he was acquiring Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Hunter Pence and who became burnt crust when he and the club couldn’t sustain that success.

Roseman has reached a status beyond any of those local contemporaries and their brief periods of genius. It isn’t just that he won a championship, that he reached another Super Bowl, that he corrected his biggest mistake (the Carson Wentz contract extension) with his greatest masterstroke (the drafting of Jalen Hurts). It’s that he seems to have earned a longer lasting bond of public trust — one that, at the moment, looks unbreakable.

Is it?

“There’s never permanent immunity in Philadelphia,” Amaro said in an interview on WIP 94.1 FM. “Andy Reid didn’t get permanent immunity, and he is one of the best coaches in the history of the game, I think. But I believe that Howie put himself in the position, because of his efforts, because of his ability to adjust, and because of his desire to get better and better, where he’s as good as there is in the game of football.

“I’m a huge Howie Roseman fan. What Howie did, when he was let go as the GM and put into a different position, was he made himself better. He studied. He tried to find best practices. He made an adjustment, and you’ve got to respect that because when he came back, he did some pretty phenomenal things.”

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What Roseman has done, really, is marry two values that are often thought to be in competition but don’t have to be: an adherence to foundational principles and beliefs, and the willingness and need to innovate. For all the rightful praise that the Eagles receive for being forward-thinking in their understanding and use of analytics and Roseman’s finessing of the salary cap, their core football philosophy is as old-school as it gets: Games are won and lost along the offensive and defensive lines.

You can cycle through running backs and linebackers. You can survive and even thrive with a decent backup quarterback. But without men who can protect your quarterback and terrorize the other team’s, who allow you to control the line of scrimmage, you’ll go nowhere. That philosophy doesn’t change, and those areas have to be shored up annually, as if the previous season — its successes, its failures — never happened. The challenge is figuring out what the next innovation, the next exploitable area, is.

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“We have to do what we think is in the best interest to reset, start over, and put us in the best possible position,” Roseman said at the start of training camp. “I think that’s the mindset. That’s the mindset from our coaching staff and from our players is that none of what we’ve done in the past matters. None of what anyone else has done in the past matters. We have to start from scratch and keep our process in place.”

That sounds like a contradiction. It’s not. It’s the core of the approach that has elevated the Eagles to where they are now: atop the NFC, one of the models for the right way to run a franchise in the modern NFL. It’s the reason no one mutters a curse word about Howie Roseman anymore, aside from the executives who see his number flicker on their phones.