By all appearances, the Eagles are wrapping up a largely successful offseason. The organization extended most of its core players, filled holes through free agency, even went up in the draft and got its franchise quarterback. Sam Bradford mess aside, pretty solid.
Perhaps it's no coincidence a new "collaborative" front office headed by Howie Roseman appears to be running smoothly. The reason why, on the other hand, might come as something of a surprise. The Eagles vice president of football operations says he "learned a lot from" Chip Kelly, the disgraced head coach who only one year ago usurped the role of personnel head.
Relax. He wasn't taking tips on assembling an NFL roster.
Speaking to Colin Cowherd for Fox Sports Radio, Roseman admitted he learned a lot from a contentious partnership with Kelly that lasted just two years before the structure of the front office required changing. That's not necessarily news, although the analogy he used maybe wasn't the best, comparing the back-and-forth between front office and coaching staff to a marriage.
Sounds like Howie knew these comments could land him the doghouse, so sorry in advance if we're blowing up his spot. Via OregonLive.com:
"I look back and there are certainly things that I could have done a better job with, there's no question about that ... I was with someone for a long time in Andy Reid. Professional and personally, couldn't been closer and maybe then you take for granted sometimes relationships and how - like with your wife and hopefully she's not listening right now - you gotta work on them. I learned a lot from it and I learned a lot from Chip, no question about it. Our organization is better because of some of the things he brought here."
Chip did do some good when he was here. If only Dr. Phil had intervened, maybe the Eagles wouldn't have had whatever disagreement led to Marcus Smith being a first-round pick and all the fallout from that mistake.
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Then again, Roseman and Reid were seemingly so happy together, and their offspring one year included Danny Watkins, Jaiquawn Jarrett and Daniel Te'o-Nesheim. I guess even perfect couples fight and sometimes break up.
To his credit, Roseman has taken responsibility for whatever communication failures existed between he and Kelly that led to a deeper organizational divide and eventual divorce. Then again, seeing how little respect Kelly often chose to lend ideas counter to his own, his marriage with the Eagles was probably doomed from the start.
