Birds left with many questions, few answers
The end of season video conference Monday with Eagles general manager Howie Roseman and Doug Pederson was a lot like the 4-12-1 season.
It left you with a ton of questions and few, if any, substantive answers.
“This has been a disappointing, embarrassing, frustrating season,” Roseman said. “Obviously, what we’ve done here, when you win four games, that’s on all of us. That’s on me. We have really good people here. We have to figure out how to fix this and get this back on the right path.”
Roseman answered 17 of the 20 questions during the availability. It was another reminder that he wields the hammer and shapes the narrative.
Reading between the lines, the Eagles are open to shopping quarterback Carson Wentz, who was benched the last four games in favor of rookie Jalen Hurts. The latter also could be tradable as Roseman didn’t rule anything out while asking for time to evaluate the position with “fresh eyes.
“In terms of Carson, I don’t think it’s a secret that we moved up to draft him because of what we thought about him as a person, as a player,” Roseman said. “We gave him that extension because of the same things. And so, when you have players like that, they are like fingers on your hand. You can’t even imagine that they are not part of you, that they are not here. That’s how we feel about Carson.”
Roseman regrets using “quarterback factory” after the surprising selection of Hurts in the second round of the draft. He doesn’t think that impacted Wentz.
“Anyone who knows Carson, knows how strong of a person he is and knows how much he believes in his own abilities,” Roseman said. “In
terms of why we didn’t have a good season, it’s not just on one player and I think that when you look at it, the team as a whole didn’t perform up to expectations. The moves that we made didn’t perform up to expectations, and to put it on Carson isn’t fair.”
Among the impactful issues
Roseman addressed was the composition of the roster. The Eagles have aged in front of our eyes, from offensive linemen Brandon Brooks, Lane Johnson and Jason Peters to receivers Alshon Jeffery, DeSean Jackson and tight end Zach Ertz.
Hurts clearly was a find but it’s hard to tell why the Eagles missed on first and second-day draft picks Jalen Reagor and Davion Taylor, although it might be partly due to the coaching, which was limited by pandemic protocols.
Interestingly Roseman gave a bigger plug to front office executives who left the Eagles than the ones who are still on the job. The inference was that Joe Douglas, now with the New York Jets and Andrew Berry, the general manager of the Cleveland Browns shaped the rosters in the previous years when the Eagles were winning games.
Enter John Dorsey, the long-time NFL G.M. who is respected more as an evaluator of people than someone who makes friends and influences people.
“John is somebody that we’ve all had a relationship with through the years being in the league for a long time,” Roseman said. “I think highly of him as a person, as an evaluator.”
It’s Roseman’s way of saying he needs help, his staff needs help and the Eagles’ roster needs help — maybe even a drastic makeover.
The Eagles seriously believed that returning much of their coaching staff, including Pederson, would give them an advantage in the NFC East. They were one of the most penalized teams in the division.
Roseman said the OTA’s and offseason programs blown up by the coronavirus didn’t help. Neither did aggressive spending in free agency for cornerback Darius Slay and defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, who didn’t exactly play at a Pro Bowl level. The deals won’t make it any easier for the Eagles to get out of salary cap hell, the condition aggravated by the considerable loss of revenues playing with limited, or no fans. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie was keenly aware of the virus. He spoke on it at length during his annual state of the Eagles address.