Hayes vs. Sielski: Fire Howie Roseman? Not quite. Celebrate Howie Roseman? Please.
Without his close relationship with Jeffrey Lurie, Roseman would have been fired when Super Bowl-winning coach Doug Pederson got canned in January. Somehow, Howie survived ... for the moment.
As the Eagles prepare to host the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday night, Inquirer Sports columnists Marcus Hayes and Mike Sielski will debate four issues facing the Eagles, today through Saturday.
Today’s issue: Did Howie Roseman have a good year?
» READ MORE: Here is MIKE SIELSKI'S take
The notion that Howie Roseman deserves some sort of congratulations for producing a nine-win, second-place team in the NFL’s worst division assumes that Howie Roseman didn’t produce the four-win, last-place debacle of 2020. His season is just the first step in cleaning up three years of general mismanagement.
The Eagles made the playoffs only because many of Roseman’s contemporaries are even worse at general managing than he is. In the four seasons since the Super Bowl, Roseman, awash in autocratic ecstasy, turned a team that had the potential to contend for a decade into a franchise hoping for its second playoff win since Super Bowl LII.
This sort of performance would have gotten most GMs fired, but Roseman convinced Jeffrey Lurie that Roseman and Roseman alone won that Super Bowl, and Lurie, who sees himself in Howie, wants to believe that. That sort of flawed equity is priceless, because Roseman’s ineptitude has been staggering.
The Eagles wasted $33 million, lost a franchise quarterback, and traded a player who cost them five draft picks for a third-rounder and a late first-rounder because, for better or worse, Roseman didn’t consult Carson Wentz before drafting Jalen Hurts with a second-round pick in 2020. I hate this reality, and you probably do, too, but in today’s NFL, you have to include the franchise quarterback when making big decisions.
» READ MORE: Carson Wentz forces Eagles to make the worst trade in Philadelphia sports history | Marcus Hayes
Roseman is the reason why the Eagles have no receiver to pair with rookie DeVonta Smith. In the first round of the 2020 draft, Roseman fell in love with the (alleged) speed of unproductive TCU receiver Jalen Reagor and bypassed the polished, complete Justin Jefferson. Reagor has 62 catches for 676 yards. The Vikings’ Jefferson, meanwhile, was elected to his second Pro Bowl last month, when he broke Odell Beckham Jr.’s record for most receiving yards in a player’s first two seasons (2,755). He stands at 2,909.
Roseman also drafted JJ Arcega-Whiteside in the second round of 2019. DK Metcalf, Diontae Johnson, and Terry McLaurin all went within the next 19 picks. In the past three seasons, that trio combined to average 225 catches, 2,940 yards, and 21 touchdowns each.
JJAW: 16 catches, 290 yards, one TD. This season: two catches.
Yet, he remains. Come on.
The Eagles’ linebacking corps is a mess because Roseman has ignored it for years.
The aging defensive line underachieved in 2021, and backup defensive end Ryan Kerrigan, Roseman’s insurance against injury to Brandon Graham (who did, in fact, get injured), has no sacks and three tackles — three tackles — in 15 games.
Incredibly, Kerrigan still rates four spots higher than $10 million starter Derek Barnett, according to profootballfocus.com, which rates Barnett 76th among edge rushers who’ve taken at least 200 snaps. he has two sacks in 718 snaps. Roseman drafted Barnett in 2017, and he has given Barnett every chance to fail, and Barnett has managed to do so.
Several holes remain. After a spotty 2020, $50 million cornerback Darius “Big Play” Slay actually made a few in 2021, but the Birds still lack one outside cornerback, since Roseman’s latest free-agent solution, Steven Nelson, ranks among the league’s 20th percentile at the position.
You don’t earn nine wins without a few successes. Hurts has played OK, the offensive line depth is remarkable, and the Eagles run the ball better than any other team, even if that happened by accident.
But if you use the emergence of 2018 seventh-round offensive lineman Jordan Mailata as evidence of Roseman’s prescience, you’re only admitting Roseman’s mistake when drafting Andre Dillard in the first round in 2019, because Dillard can’t get playing time on a team missing four of its offensive linemen.
And if you use the contribution of veteran running back Jordan Howard over the last nine games, you admit that Roseman made a huge mistake of burying Howard on the practice squad for the first seven games as the team went 2-5.
How much credit does Roseman earn for moving up to draft Smith in the first round of 2021 and for gambling a second-rounder that guard/center Landon Dickerson would bounce back from his latest college injury and contribute this season? How much credit does he deserve for the minimum $15 million or so he’ll have in cap space next season? How much credit does he deserve for the promising seasons of young linebackers Davion Taylor and T.J. Edwards, and the productive efforts of safety Anthony Harris?
Some.
Enough to forgive his mistakes that got him in this mess?
Absolutely not.