Howie comes through
Roseman pays right price at right time in acquiring Tate
PHILADELPHIA >> In the world of fantasy, in the blurred minds of the draft-addicted, in so many warped concepts that have defined a newer generation of sports fans, Howie Roseman may be accused of irresponsible tradedeadline behavior Tuesday.
But in the world of what some like to call pro football, the Eagles’ personnel boss did what was right for his team.
“We are not trying to win the deal,” Roseman said. “We are trying to win games.”
Imagine having that attitude in the city where deliberately designing inept basketball teams was considered advanced sports science. Imagine being so cheeky in a town where baseball fans were conditioned to wait for minorleague players to develop before being green-lighted to think about a pennant.
Imagine trading a thirdround draft choice for a 30-year-old player under contract for no more than eight more scheduled games … and being unafraid that the transaction might not have penciled-out on one of those goofy
draft-value charts.
But Roseman did that Tuesday, flipping a promise for a player, shipping that third-round choice to Detroit for exactly what the Eagles need this year, stellar wide-receiver, third-down-specialist and all-around annoyance to any secondary, Golden Tate. Not next year. Not the year after. This one.
What? Was he supposed to worry about looking foolish 11 years from now if that pick the Lions acquired turns out to have had one season as a Pro Bowl alternate?
“You’re always trying to get the best price,” Roseman said, at a post-tradedeadline gathering at the News-Control Compound. “There is no doubt about it. But we’re not trying to win the trades. We’re trying to get really good players.
“The message to our fans, to our players, to our coaches, to everyone in this organization is that our foot is always going to be on the gas. We’re always trying to win. We’re always going to try to put our best foot forward. What we can do now is try to do that for this season and this moment. That’s what we’re going to do. And that’s our responsibility.”
That message? Perfect. That foot-on-the-pedal image? Flawless. That consistency with the way Roseman runs a football operation? Necessary. Had he not invested a fourth-round draft choice in Jay Ajayi at the last trade deadline, the Eagles would have been in their 58th consecutive season without a world championship in this one.
No two situations are identical. And the Ajayi gamble was a better value than the Tate investment, for two reasons. For one, the fee last year was a fourth-round pick, not a third. The other was that Ajayi was signed for that year and the next. Tate cost the Birds a No. 3, and when the buzzer sounds to end this season, it will also signal the end of his deal.
But Carson Wentz is 25 and has never played in a winning playoff game. Though he has recovered from it nicely, in large measure because of his legendary competitive streak, he already has survived one career-threatening injury. Technically, the Eagles have time to realize the maximum return on a quarterback on whom they invested two first-round picks, a second-rounder, a third and a fourth. But they are in a mid-major division. Their victory Sunday over Jacksonville in London left them at 4-4, a stable launching pad for the second half of their season. And they have enough Super Bowl LII champions to boil another championship frenzy.
Why wait?
“If we can add value and if we can add talent anywhere on the team,” Doug Pederson said Monday, “we are going to look at that.”
Roseman said he looked everywhere for help. He could have used some on the defensive line, on a corner, in the backfield. But mostly, he needed to maximize the leading strength of Wentz, his ability to wait out any pass rush and find open teammates. A 2014 Pro Bowl receiver, Tate has 581 career receptions, including 37 touchdowns. For a team that traded Torrey Smith to the Panthers, and which has seen targeted replacements Mike Wallace and Mack Hollins be injured this season, the Birds had to provide Wentz with another outlet … even if it was not exactly a dollarstore bargain.
“We weren’t just going to be flippant about how we throw picks around,” Roseman said. “It was about the value of this player for our football team and what we think he can do for us. That was the market.
“We know it wasn’t a cheap price to pay.”
No. But it was the right price to pay, for the right player to buy, at the right time for a quarterback, in the right season for a championship team to try to be one again.
“The hardest trades, and the ones that are the most fair, are the ones that are hard to pick up the phone and say, ‘Done deal,’” Roseman said. “Certainly the compensation for the Lions was a good price for them, too. But we are really happy to get the player.”
Players win games. Sometimes, they can even win parades.
“We are not,” Howie Roseman said, “going to sit on our hands.”
It’s how to build a championship team. It’s how to preserve one, too.