Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Lurie to Lombardi: ‘Click off, fella!’
As usual, everything is right in Jeff Lurie’s world. And at a rare Happy Hour gathering Thursday, that sentiment was expressed right from the owners’ mouth.
“I just wanted to share my excitement for the season with our fans and really that’s the reason,” Lurie said of his magical media appearance inside the NovaCare Complex auditorium. “Kind of impromptu.”
The Big Birds Boss had awakened that morning, he explained, and told himself that he hadn’t spoken publicly about his team since the owners meetings in March, and gee, since the media business wasn’t going nearly as well as the football business, “some of you don’t get to the owners meetings.” Our loss. But since he thought of stopping by, Lurie went ahead and created a refrain... Leave his people alone. Which brings us first to Mike Lombardi, who used to be one of Jeffie’s Kids. The native of Ocean City, N.J. and Valley Forge Military Academy product was the Eagles’ player personnel director in 1998, staying less than a year.
That job and others like it with other NFL teams prepared Lombardi for a career in something he does best: BSing people. Good work if you can get it. “I just voiced an opinion,” Lombardi said on Comcast SportsNet this week. “It’s not a hot take by no means.”
No sir. Lombardi, whose past scouting, coaching and front office experience didn’t do much for his use of grammar but did win him full-time football media gigs for the past nine years, has been with the digital outlet The Ringer since January. In a recent video for The Ringer he said the magic words, “Everyone knows that Doug Pederson isn’t a head coach.”
There was much more context offered by Lombardi, both then and in a follow-up “explanation” interview with grumpy CSN people. Doesn’t matter, of course.
This was a former NFL general manager (Cleveland did that, of course ... and he lasted a year) taking a cheap shot at a member of the league’s coaching fraternity. A meme is born! One that Lurie may have stewed upon for days. Such insider brattiness doesn’t sit well when you’re coming off a 7-9 season, one that included some Pederson moves scrutinized and criticized both during and after the season.
Then there’s the whole Howie Roseman thing, Lurie’s poster child for football academia GM who has (unfairly) invited his own critics in the media. Not only from “insiders” either.
So while this sudden resumption of what used to be a tradition — the annual pre-opener Lurie state-of-thefranchise chit-chat — was said by the owner to be spontaneous, the timing of it certainly seemed like a defensive pushback for his put-upon football people.
Even if, in the grand old Lurie style, he really didn’t say anything that carried an erudite edge.
So how did he feel about what Lombardi said about Pederson?
“I have a strong endorsement of Doug,” Lurie said. “First of all, those comments — you guys call it ‘click bait,’ or ‘hot takes’ — that’s how I saw that.
“You know, Doug ... took over a team that had some locker room issues with the previous head coach (huh, must have forgot his name?), lost his starting quarterback 10 days before the start of the season and was asked to use our young third-string quarterback, and had to put together a coaching staff.”
Lurie pointed out, of course, that this Eagles coaching staff is magnificent, amazing, super-intelligent and a hell of a bunch of nice guys and ... (even though it really should have at least one woman to bring it better balance, no?) ... “that’s a huge credit” to Pederson.
Then the owner added, “With quarterback analysis, locker room chemistry, and the ability to put together a top-notch coaching staff, those are three really key ingredients and he aced them all.”
Put that on your digital site video and Ring it, fella!
Now, from the head coach to the general manager, not that Howie needs anyone to fight his battles, but...
“I think Howie’s done a tremendous job,” Lurie said. “I have total confidence in Howie, the last couple of years (making) remarkable, franchise changing decisions and, as I’ve said before, it is not easy to not tank and be able to accomplish the goals you want in the NFL.”
No, the Eagles haven’t tanked. They also have played one playoff game over the past six years.
Of course, there is a rebuild going on, even if no one around here is calling it that. To the owner, this club is in “Year 2 of The Plan.”
Presumably that means Carson Wentz is more Plan than starting quarterback. Or maybe it’s Pederson that is at the center of The Plan, or both, or Howie the Magnificent, who pulled off the great move-up to get Wentz two draft days ago.
“That’s just one of the key things that Howie, the player personnel department, the analytics, everybody has participated in,” Lurie said. “And the coaches in a big way. Ever since then it’s been like one domino after another in terms of smart moves. Really happy with the additions this offseason as I was the (previous) offseason.
“Howie’s primary function is to organize that and be the final decision-maker when it comes to the key moves we make. And also to structure contracts so we can maximize our assets.”
From the front office, to the coaches’ offices to the locker room, Jeff Lurie says he has assets all around. So what if that opinion has yet to show up in the standings? He knows it, he’s sure of it and he’s not going to let any stinking, rotten digital media insider guy tell him any differently.
Even if he used to cut him a paycheck every other week.