Roseman, Sirianni find right formula
PHILADELPHIA — Injuries, rookies and regression.
They are the three big unknowns for the Eagles. They are the three big unknowns in sports.
They are also the three big reasons Howie Roseman did not rip off his shirt after unveiling his roster Tuesday. That, and Nick Sirianni was sitting next to him.
The first rule of cut-down day: Never guarantee a Super Bowl.
The second: Never challenge an Italian American to a flex-off.
Not that you would have blamed either of them.
Roseman and Sirianni have accomplished a heck of a thing over the last three years. They’ve built a team that is a couple of laps ahead of the competition, and they’ve done it in a way that seems destined to last.
That’s true of the roster. It’s also true of the partnership at its foundation.
The big story on cut-down day is that there was no big story. So much so that the Eagles did not even send out their official 53-man roster until after Roseman and Sirianni took their places at the podium to field questions about the roster. While this was mostly due to a technological snafu, it was indicative of the absence of anything substantive to announce.
Also indicative were two instances in which reporters mistakenly asked questions that had already been answered.
One was about a backup tight end whom the Eagles acquired from the Broncos for a sixth- and seventh-round pick. The other was about a waiver-claim cornerback who is suspended for the 2023 season and can’t have any contact with the team.
The normal times tend to be the strangest, don’t they?
Think back to the last two times the Eagles entered a season as NFC champs.
Back in 2005 Terrell Owens was doing situps in his driveway and waging a prolonged campaign of mutually assured destruction.
Thirteen years later Carson Wentz was rehabbing a torn-up knee and battered-down ego as Nick Foles entered the season as a lame-duck starter.
It’s a long way from there to Albert Okwuegbunam and Isaiah Rodgers.
At the same time, the Okwuegbunam trade and Rodgers claim are both more relevant than they seem. There’s a decent chance neither one ends up playing a substantive role for the Eagles now or in the future, but it’s moves like these that are largely responsible for the team’s unprecedented stability.
The strength of this year’s team is as much a testament to Roseman’s dedication to the grind as it is to any of the roster’s individual parts.
Before Jordan Mailata spent two years on the active roster without playing a snap, the Eagles tried a guy named Dillon Gordon. Before Jalen Hurts hit big as a risk-reward player, there were whiffs on Sidney Jones and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside.
In Sirianni, Roseman appears to have found a partner who is the perfect yang to his yin. The absence of drama surrounding this year’s team includes the relationship between the two men.
With Chip Kelly and Doug Pederson, early success only seemed to exacerbate the tension between the first and second floors of the Nova Care Complex. No offseason was complete without a barrage of questions about who was really in charge. Nice roster you got there. But, really, whose roster is it?
Those tensions ultimately played a big part in the demise of both of those head coaches. They also whittled away Roseman’s benefit of the doubt to something at or below zero.
The lack of any such narrative has been one of the defining characteristics of this Super Bowl aftermath. Credit Roseman’s growth as a leader. Credit Sirianni’s lack of ego.
Whatever the actual dynamic between them, they both seem to understand that it works. Anybody who looks at this roster can see how much better it is than the competition.
The NFC is a wasteland right now. The most complete team behind the Eagles also happens to be the most dysfunctional. How does Jerry Jones trade a fourth-round pick for a quarterback who got beat out by Sam Darnold and allow it to rankle his legitimate starter?
The annual Arlington circus leaves the 49ers as the Eagles’ biggest competition. They didn’t have a quarterback in last year’s NFC championship game. They still don’t with Brock Purdy.
The Eagles? The only stuff that can stop them from another Super Bowl is the stuff that nobody can control: an injury to Hurts or one of the offensive tackles; the end of the road for Darius Slay or James Bradberry; the lack of a pass rush that will be reliant on a bunch of players on the extremes of the aging spectrum; a schedule that features some actual quarterbacks instead of last year’s weekly slop.
Whatever happens this season, they have a foundation in place. Hurts, two top-20 receivers, a stable of running backs, Mailata and Landon Dickerson — all of them are the type of five-to-10-year pieces that breed organizational stability. The Eagles have found the right formula at exactly the right time. All that’s left is to cross your fingers.