MINNEAPOLIS - You know how cool it was watching the Eagles win the Super Bowl?
Now imagine you put the team together.
Imagine that the team you watched on Sunday was crafted by your own two hands. Nearly every player picked by you for one reason or another. The pressure and the reward.
That's what it had to be like for Eagles vice president of football operations Howie Roseman. Once stripped of his personnel power and banished to the supply closet, Roseman returned with a vengeance, even more bold than he was before, and he put together the team that won Super Bowl LII.
He drafted Carson Wentz. He traded Sam Bradford. He traded for Tim Jernigan and Jay Ajayi. He signed LeGarrette Blount and Alshon Jeffery and Chris Long and Patrick Robinson and Stefen Wisniewski. And he brought back Nick Foles. He helped hire Doug Pederson and Joe Douglas. He drafted Derek Barnett.
Roseman put this team together. And then he watched it do something all the others in franchise history couldn't.
"That's my job. I'm just trying to do my job," Roseman said late on Sunday night. "That's it. Try to do my job, try to do it the best I can. I've got a great staff that helps me. We've got a great coach and great players. It's not about Howie Roseman. It's about the Philadelphia Eagles being Super Bowl champs!"
Philadelphia Eagles
Complete coverage of the Philadelphia Eagles and their NFL rivals from NBC Sports Philadelphia.
As Roseman walked through the hallway that led away from the Eagles' locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium, where the Lombardi Trophy was still being passed around for photos, he said he hadn't really thought that deeply about watching his creation.
On Sunday night, Roseman just wanted to soak it all in.
Roseman, 42, started with the Eagles as an intern in 2000 and slowly worked his way up from there. He was relentless in his pursuit to become an NFL general manager and got there with the Eagles in 2010. He lasted through 2014, when Chip Kelly won a power struggle briefly.
For a year, Roseman waited in the shadows and eventually outlasted Kelly, who was fired. Roseman then brought in personnel man Joe Douglas, one of the conditions of his reinstatement to power, and started making moves to put together the roster that won Super Bowl LII.
"It's great," Roseman said, before stopping briefly to make sure the busses weren't about to leave for the party without him. "Happy for the City of Philadelphia, happier for our organization. It hasn't even started yet, man. We got to celebrate with all of us here, but can't wait to do it with all of our families, can't wait to do it with our friends. And I can't wait to do it down Broad Street."
The most impressive thing about the team that Roseman built was that it was built to last through injuries that would have devastated other teams. Sure, coaching had a lot to do with it, but Roseman provided Pederson the players to get it done.
Last week, owner Jeff Lurie admitted that winning a Super Bowl with this group of players would be even more special because of the adversity they've faced.
"It's hard to win a world championship," Roseman said. "Everything has to go right. And not everything went right for us. But when you think about it, the city of Philadelphia hasn't had a world championship in 60 years. Is it going to be easy? No! Nothing in life that's worthwhile is easy. And this (Super Bowl) hat. We're world champions forever. This group is a special group."
