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From Unpaid Intern Who Never Played Football to The NFL’s Most Powerful GM: The Unlikely Journey of Howie Roseman

He sent 1,100 letters to NFL teams and rejections stacked “as high as the ceiling”. Here’s how he beat the odds to make his dream a reality.

“Was this guy the most persistent guy in the history of America or was he crazy?”

Most kids grow up dreaming of becoming a professional athlete.

Hitting home runs in the World Series or slinging touchdown passes in the Super Bowl.

But when people asked 9-year-old Howie Roseman what he wanted to do, he knew exactly what to say.

“I’m going to be the general manager of a National Football League team,” he declared .

“They used to laugh.”

Sure, people thought he was crazy.

Here was a kid who never played a single down of football talking about building an NFL roster, scouting talent, and negotiating contracts.  What did he know?

But young Howie was dead serious.

Growing up in Marlboro, New Jersey, Roseman negotiated his first major deal as a young boy: convincing his father (who wasn’t a football fan) to buy season tickets for the New York Jets.

Up in the stands, he didn’t dream of becoming the league’s next superstar quarterback or wide receiver.

He wanted to be the guy who drafted them.

Howie was the only person in his family who cared about sports.  Because his parents didn’t understand football, he wasn’t allowed to play – even if he wanted to.

“It didn’t take long for me to see that with the size difference between me and my friends who were playing, that wasn’t really my career route.”

When he wasn’t at a Jets game with his dad, he watched football on TV by himself and started studying how teams were built.

As he got older, his obsession grew.

By the time he was an undergrad at the University of Florida, Howie had binders packed with player stats and built his own draft boards before every NFL Draft.

He was laser-focused on his dream, but he needed a way in.

Per a 2012 Philly Mag article : “[Roseman] didn’t have any legacy connections inside the league — no uncle who played in the ’70s, no coach who knew his parents. Before Roseman was hired as an intern in 2000, he had as much of an inside track into the game as your average sports talk-radio caller.”

So, between his senior year of high school and his third year of law school, Howie Roseman sent an estimated 1,100 letters to NFL teams.  One letter to each team three or four times a year.

“Rejections stacked as high as the ceiling in any room in your house,” he told Bleacher Report in 2014 .

“I never wanted to do anything else. I really didn’t have a backup plan.”

Finally, one of his letters caught someone’s attention – Philadelphia Eagles team president, Joe Banner.

“Was this guy the most persistent guy in the history of America or was he crazy?” Banner asked at the time.

“Should we stay away from him, or should one of us interview him?”

Banner took the interview, and just like that Howie Roseman had his foot in the door.

Officially, he was hired as a salary cap/staff counsel for the Eagles in 2000.

In reality, he was an unpaid, entry-level intern who didn’t even have his own desk.

Yes, really.  He sat at the end of an administrative assistant’s desk, trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible.

“I was 25, fresh out of school, and I had all this energy and ideas,” Roseman said.

“So I started shooting off questions, and she finally turns to me and goes, ‘Enough with the f*cking questions.’”

But Howie didn’t care.  His dream had legs.  This was his opportunity.

“He goes all in at everything he does,” said University of Washington head coach Jedd Fisch, Howie’s college roommate.

“I knew that whatever he said he was going to be, he was going to become.”

Roseman was committed to ascending the ranks.

“When you didn’t know him, it was almost too much,” Banner said.

“Somebody who wants it that badly. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care about the commute. I don’t care what I get paid. I don’t care what job you give me. I don’t care where I have to sit. That will take care of itself in time.”

Howie Roseman had complete conviction and trusted the process.

“I was very fortunate to get in and be exposed to every different area of the business,” he said at Villanova’s 2023 Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal Symposium .

“In an industry where people don’t really stay in one place, I was able to kind of move up, and get different jobs, and all through the same organization.”

Three years after landing the unpaid internship, Howie was elevated to director of football administration in 2003.

Three years later, he was promoted to vice president of football administration, where he evaluated players for the NFL Draft and represented the team to the NFL on contract, salary cap, and player personnel matters.

Then on January 29th, 2010, he was named general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles – becoming one of the youngest GMs in NFL history.

The move sparked a firestorm of criticism.

How could a guy with no playing experience be the one calling the shots?

“I bet the rest of the NFC is scared now,” one Delco Times commenter sarcastically declared. “Another bean counter.”

“Don’t you get it?” another asked. “They hire YES men.”

In his first season as GM, Roseman restructured the roster into one of the league’s youngest and won the NFC East.

Still, he faced backlash from all directions.  And it wasn’t just faceless internet commenters.

Scouts gave him the side-eye and his own players questioned his competence.

In 2012, then-Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel took his shot at Howie and the team’s front office: “They’ve probably never played football…It’s a business, and they run it like a business…They’re playing with a lot of money, playing fantasy football, doing their thing.”

But Roseman stayed focused.  His eyes fixed on bringing the coveted Lombardi Trophy to Philadelphia for the first time in franchise history.

“No one wants to see you be successful,” he said. “You gotta…be able to push through the negativity that you’re gonna inevitably face if you want to be successful.”

That’s exactly what he did.

Roseman replaced Joe Banner in 2012 and went from salary-cap savant to bonafide talent evaluator .

Then, the train went off the rails.

New head coach Chip Kelly came in and stripped Howie of team control in 2015.

It was a very public exile.

Roseman was moved to the other side of the building – pushed to the side, just as he was 15 years earlier as the entry-level intern.

It would’ve been easy to give up or jump ship.  But Howie stuck it out.

“He was out there all the time, watching, and I think fully believing that he would get another chance,” said Hall of Fame sportswriter Ray Didinger.

After Kelly got fired a short while later, Howie returned to his old role with a chance for redemption.

We all know what happened next.

Howie Roseman was the architect who helped bring Philadelphia their first Super Bowl championship.

As Jason Kelce said in his famous Super Bowl parade speech : “He was put in the side of the building where I didn’t see him for over a year!… He came out of there with a purpose and drive to make this possible!”

Howie Roseman pulled it off. He went from an underdog with no connections or football experience to a Super Bowl Champion and award-winning NFL GM.

Today, he’s a two-time PFWA Executive of the Year (2017 and 2022) and one of the most powerful executives in professional sports.

“Adversity is okay,” he said. “It humbles you [and] it puts you back on path.”

Paired with unwavering confidence, his complete obsession with football carried Howie down an unlikely path.

To this day, that passion shines through.

Every year, the Eagles’ media kit lists ‘fun facts’ for each player and exec: Favorite movies, books, TV shows, and finally – “If you were not in football, where would you be?”

Howie Roseman’s response?

“Looking for a way to get into football.”

Editor’s Note: This story was requested by a reader of The Underdog Newsletter . Join him and 14,500+ others who get it every Sunday! 👇

Division III baseball alum (McDaniel College) and founder of Joker Mag. Sharing underdog stories to inspire the next generation.

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Howie Roseman’s Unlikely Journey to Becoming the Best Exec in the NFL

The architect of the 2023 Eagles is perhaps the most unexpected story in sports.

Get a compelling long read and must-have lifestyle tips in your inbox every Sunday morning — great with coffee!

Howie Roseman / Photograph by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

Howie Roseman sat onstage at Villanova University’s Sports Law Symposium in March, just a few weeks removed from narrowly losing the Super Bowl. The Eagles have been to four championships since the Super Bowl was established in 1966; Roseman was the general manager for two of them, including the franchise’s first and only Lombardi Trophy. When the team plane arrived home from that historic win in 2018, it was Roseman, the architect, who thrust the silver souvenir above his head, to the delight of everyone around him — the owner, head coach, players, and fans who’d gathered to welcome their triumphant heroes home. It was a “We did it” moment, but the look on Howie’s face — teeth clenched, a sniper’s stare — also suggested a hint of “ I did it.”

Over the course of about 40 minutes at the symposium, Roseman and the moderator, ’Nova’s sports law center director and ex-Green Bay Packers general manager Andrew Brandt, traced the former’s remarkable career path: from eager intern to salary-cap expert to GM, a public demotion, and then a triumphant return to power. Good luck thinking of a more fitting keynote speaker, from Philadelphia or anywhere else, for this event, titled “Sports Leagues: Challenges to Enter, Maintain and Remain.”

At one point, Brandt made a few references to Roseman’s “success,” which prompted a chuckle from his guest. “I’d take exception with that,” Roseman said. “I think we’ve had tremendous success.” The evidence is overwhelming: playoff appearances in five of the past six years and eight of his 12 years as GM, five division championships, and the cherry on top, two NFL Executive of the Year awards. “This team has been one of the top four or five in the league for a long time now,” says Pro Football Hall of Fame sportswriter and preeminent Birds historian Ray Didinger . The 2022 Eagles roster was arguably the best in franchise history, and as Didinger points out, every free agent Roseman signed in the 2017 season played a key role in their path to a title: “He’s the guy responsible for building the roster, and not only did he build it — he’s rebuilt it and sustained it. With the NFL’s setup, that’s not easy to do.”

So how did Howie (as he’s known by everyone except perhaps his children) achieve and maintain this tremendous success? I picked the football brains of experts and former GMs to understand what it takes to walk in Howie’s shoes and perhaps peek at the recipe for that magic fairy dust he sprinkles across our beloved, once-­befuddling, now best-of-class Birds. (As a testament to Howie’s current power, one media member declined to talk on the record out of concern for Howie’s reaction; another, former Inquirer columnist and ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith, hung up on me before I finished my request for an interview, which probably says nothing about Howie but is delightfully on-brand for Stephen A.) From those who accepted my calls, I learned Howie’s story is a “both/and” tale, informed by a lot of nurture but also, like so many of the great sports biographies, with a man at its center who is naturally wired differently from most human beings — a rare visionary who knew, early on and accurately, what he was meant to do and let nothing stop him from achieving it.

A little over a decade ago, I sat down with Howie in his spacious office overlooking the team’s practice field for a profile in this magazine , and the question I aimed to answer was: How did a guy with no football experience on any level end up, at 37, becoming the youngest GM in the NFL? Howie told me a story about when he was eight years old and met John Elway’s dad on an airplane flight. He talked the poor guy’s ear off for two hours. The elder Elway was so impressed by the boy’s acumen that he said he should be on TV. Howie’s takeaway, as a child, was that someone finally believed in him. He’d long been telling people he wanted to one day run a football team.

You may already know the broad strokes of Howie’s biography: He watched the NFL draft on TV back when only the hardest diehards tuned in, and kept binders stuffed with player stats and a draft board in his college apartment. After graduating from Fordham law school, he sent letters — many, many letters — to every NFL team until then-Eagles president Joe Banner finally agreed to meet with this young superfan/stalker, then hired him as an intern. Howie replaced Banner in 2012 and grew from salary-cap guru to talent evaluator, until new head coach Chip Kelly arrived and stripped Howie of control of the team in 2015. When Kelly left two seasons later, Howie returned to his old role, then rose to even greater heights. (A more succinct summary of Howie’s journey was provided by Jason Kelce at the Super Bowl parade: “He was put in the side of the building where I didn’t see him for over a year! … He came out of there with a purpose and drive to make this possible!”) His is a roller-coaster redemption story unlike anything in football or any other sport.

He had the mind-set, he had the confidence, he had the fearlessness. There’s very few people in the NFL that frankly have the guts to be aggressive, to look for every opportunity no matter how small it is.” — Joe Banner, on Howie Roseman

Banner saw firsthand the dues that Howie was willing to pay for a chance to realize his childhood dream; instead of having a corner office, Howie sat at the corner of Banner’s secretary’s desk. Even then, there was a self-assuredness to him that both impressed and fit into the organization’s philosophy. “First,” says Banner, who’s now the co-founder of football website 33rd Team, where he blogs frequently, “if we got it wrong, it’s okay. Everybody makes mistakes, but you’ve got to admit it quickly and then fix it. And second, we don’t fear failure.” Banner recalls a pre-draft meeting one year when Howie, still learning the ropes of talent evaluation, pushed back on a highly touted prospect who had impressed most of the “football guys” in the room. “He had the mind-set, he had the confidence, he had the fearlessness,” Banner says. “There’s very few people in the NFL that frankly have the guts to be aggressive, to look for every opportunity no matter how small it is.”

Former New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi is familiar with both a fearless leadership style and the feeling of being an outsider in the NFL. In a past life, Accorsi covered the Sixers for the Inquirer and worked in public relations for Penn State and the Baltimore Colts before crossing over into a variety of front-office roles. He’s best known for drafting Bernie Kosar with the Cleveland Browns and then, with the Giants, trading Philip Rivers for future Super Bowl champ Eli Manning in the 2004 draft. But even after he’d spent years on the personnel side of the game, he says, “There were football people who still called me a ‘PR guy.’” The only way to change that label? As Al Davis once said, just win, baby.

Accorsi developed a professional relationship with Howie before retiring in 2007, and it grew into a friendship, with phone calls and lunches over the years — Accorsi was a football “rabbi” of sorts, one mutual acquaintance says. Howie has only recently shed the label of “salary-cap guy,” and Accorsi thinks there’s a motivation factor they both share, having never played or coached the game (much like Banner, who ran a chain of clothing stores and a youth nonprofit before joining the Eagles’ front office). “You’re on trial every day in our business,” he says. “It’s always a challenge. But I think there was a little more with us.”

Howie’s outsider perspective might also serve him in a more tangible way, says Ross Tucker, ex-NFL lineman and now an analyst for Eagles preseason shows as well as NFL and college games and host of the Ross Tucker Football Network. Tucker points to Howie’s use of David Blaine-like magic to pull off trades that often end up heavily in the Eagles’ favor. He mentions the 2022 deal with the Saints that turned into this year’s number 10 draft pick for an Eagles team fresh off a Super Bowl appearance; in another example, Howie traded down with the Dolphins in 2021 and still drafted DeVonta Smith. (It takes an MBA in draft-pick management to keep all of Howie’s moves straight.) “It’s to the point now where I do wonder,” Tucker says, “if the other GMs are conscious of it when he calls them — like, ‘Should I do this? He’s won a lot of these trades recently. Am I sure I wanna be the next one?’” Perhaps the law-school grad and draft-binder assembler has an edge over his peers, who are nearly all from more traditional football backgrounds. “Most GMs are guys who played Division III and got into scouting,” Tucker says. “Howie has the legal background, plus all the negotiating he had to do on the ­salary-cap side. I wonder if that helps when he’s going through trades. I would say that’s his greatest strength. He’s the best trader I’ve ever seen.”

When it comes to the draft, ­Howie’s track record — like those of all GMs, ­really — is a mixed bag. Banner says Howie would probably grade at or below the league average for success based on hits (Fletcher Cox, Lane Johnson) and misses (Danny Watkins, Marcus Smith, Nelson Agholor, Jalen Reagor) in the first round, especially. But until Jalen Hurts transformed from backup to Super Bowl starter, Howie’s most significant draft pick was quarterback Carson Wentz, in 2016. It’s tempting to view Wentz as a failure, given that Howie traded five picks to move up and get him. The newly crowned Eagles franchise quarterback was injured en route to the Super Bowl in 2017 and was upstaged by a journeyman backup who’s now immortalized by a statue outside the Linc. Today, Wentz is unemployed.

The quarterback’s saga, however, illustrates more than one key aspect of Howie’s philosophy — an iron-sharpens-iron strategy honed via learning as much from failure as from success. Dating back to the Andy Reid/Banner era, Howie believes you build a football team around quarterbacks (starter and, as Howie calls his backup, “second quarterback”) and both offensive and defensive lines. (Banner and Didinger note how rare it is that the Eagles have been elite in the trenches for years and project to maintain that dominance for at least a couple more.) Like Accorsi going all-in on Eli Manning, Howie believed in Wentz and pushed his chips forward. “You’re giving up resources, but he took the chance,” Accorsi says. “I called him afterward and said, ‘I really respect that move. You believed in him. That’s how you win championships.’”

When the Wentz wagon fell apart due to injuries and what seemed like flaws in both his mechanics and his leadership, Howie did what few GMs would do, especially with a player he’d signed to a four-year, $128 million extension in 2019: Not only was Wentz on the trading block two years after that contract, but the asking price was high. “Most GMs would have been afraid, like, ‘If I don’t take one of these offers, I could get stuck with this guy,’” says Banner. “But Howie had the guts to step back and go, ‘I believe somebody is going to need a quarterback. I can do better.’ That’s being aggressive, but also being willing to wait and having good instincts.”

Missing on such a high-profile and expensive player might lead some GMs to play it a bit safer in the future, especially in a pressure-cooker market like Philadelphia. “What I thought was noteworthy was that Howie remained aggressive,” says Didinger. “Sometimes, guys get burned and they back off. Now, you just sit there and wait for your pick to come up every year, not trading up or down. Howie maintained the same approach — ‘Okay, that one didn’t work out. Maybe the next one will.’” In a telling moment at the Villanova event, Howie said of the whole saga, “I’m probably living in my own world … but I don’t view Carson as not having worked out.” Wentz didn’t play in Super Bowl LII, but without his MVP-­caliber performance in the regular season, the Birds might not have made it to the dance, and they almost certainly wouldn’t have had home-field advantage in the playoffs. Wentz helped them win a championship, and when it was all over, Howie’s haul for ­Wentz led, either directly or indirectly, to the team’s top wideouts (DeVonta Smith, A.J. Brown) and boom-or-bust defensive tackle Jalen Carter in this year’s draft, plus a 2022 sixth-round pick and a second-round selection next year. One recent headline called the deal “incredibly lopsided.”

Howie Roseman and proud Eagles with the Conference Championship trophy in January / Photograph by Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Howie’s unwavering aggression is all the more surprising when you consider Chip Kelly’s public “benching” of him, as Banner puts it, or “kick in the teeth,” as Didinger describes it. That hit might have crippled a less sturdy soul. Howie moved from the football side of the building to the business offices, in literal exile. He’d attend practices during training camp to maintain a presence but kept a respectful distance. Owner Jeffrey Lurie had the foresight to keep Howie in the family and the good fortune that he didn’t quit . “He was out there all the time, watching, and I think fully believing that he would get another chance,” says Didinger. Then, in 2016, with Kelly gone after two seasons of missing the playoffs and questionable personnel decisions, the former Eagles GM rose like a different bird. “He never flinched,” says Accorsi, who at the time called to offer support. “I was concerned for him. But there was never any phony confidence. It was always conviction.” Rather than cause him to lick his wounds or question himself, the experience only seemed to deepen Howie’s belief in himself.

It takes a unique mental fortitude to withstand such a high-profile vote of no-confidence, and it’s easy from the fan perspective to critique the public side of Howie’s job: roster-building, ensuring depth at key positions, and salary-cap management (most recently, the masterful Hurts contract that’s a true win-win, rewarding the young superstar with a $255 million deal without crushing the team’s ability to sign other players in the future). Behind the scenes and away from the spotlight that falls on all things Eagles, however, no piece of the puzzle is overlooked. It’s a lesson Howie seems to have learned early on from coach Andy Reid, when he first transitioned to the GM role. Reid told his young charge that he’d need to hit the road if he wanted to be ­successful — stay at the Motel 6, build relationships with college programs. At first, Howie didn’t get it; he could watch film on these kids and spare himself the travel and lousy meals. But he soon realized how important it was for his scouts to see him sacrificing like they do, missing time with their families in order to find advantages at the margins, or at Mary Hardin-Baylor U.

Those unseen strategies continue to pay dividends. Fresh off the Super Bowl win in 2018 yet concerned about the alarming injury rate up and down his roster, Howie overhauled the entire medical staff. The result: Last season, every starter was on the field in Phoenix for the championship game, a feat that rarely happens. Ross Tucker sees the same attention to detail on the road with the team, where accommodations and meals are always first-rate, and hears from former players who go elsewhere and find the organizational grass is rarely greener. He also says the Eagles excel in balancing old-school talent evaluation with analytics: “They do a better job of blending the numbers/math guys with the scouting/research people than any other team in the NFL.” Only a fearless outsider would consider a Goldman Sachs head of bank-loan trading with no football experience for a front-office role, as Howie did in hiring Adam Berry as director of football operations and strategy in January.

While it’s easy to focus on Howie’s whiffs, it’s much harder to argue with his track record on the whole, by almost any metric. Accorsi notes that Ron Wolf, the Hall of Fame GM of the Packers, would say there are no .406 hitters in football — a reference to Red Sox slugger Ted Williams’s legendary batting average. “You’re not going to be successful 40 percent of the time,” Accorsi says. “You’re going to make an out, and you’ve gotta get up off the ground, and you can’t let it make you shy. He’s got the courage. If something doesn’t work out, he goes right up to the plate. The next time, he’s ready to swing.”

The Sign, or, more accurately, Howie’s reaction to the Sign, was a sign itself that something had changed. Before a game against the Texans in Houston in 2022, Howie was on the field and noticed a group of Eagles fans chanting his name in the first row. The phenomenon of Birds fans turning road games into hostile territory for the home team is another by-product of the Howie era — one that he delights in and perhaps takes private credit for, as he probably should. (As Howie has said on the topic: “The sweetest sound to me is when we’re on the road and there’s less than five minutes left, and you start hearing that Eagles chant, you know? That’s a special, special thing.”)

Howie headed straight to the fan with a Phillies jersey and a sign that read, “Howie You Are Forgiven!” along with a list of draft busts with their names crossed out: Agholor, Reagor, J.J. Arcega-Whiteside. In the past, Howie likely would have ignored the sign or given a sly chuckle; maybe he’d deliver a mild dad-joke retort and move on. Instead, he acknowledged the fan’s taunt and raised the stakes. “I’m fucking forgiven for your first fucking Super Bowl?” he yelled. “Fuck you!” The Birds fans exploded in cheers — and Howie smiled. This is perhaps the final element of the job, one that Howie seems to have both struggled with and, frankly, had little time to address: fan relations. When video of the Texas showdown went viral, it proved that Howie’s confidence in himself and his approach to every aspect of the job had peaked.

Of course, luck plays an essential role in all things sports, including the fate of a general manager. As Didinger points out, the draft-pick swap that resulted in DeVonta Smith only happens because the Denver Broncos didn’t draft a quarterback, as nearly everyone expected them to. But if luck is the meeting of preparation and opportunity, credit Howie for being nimble and moving quickly to make a deal with one rival (Dallas) to stick it to another (New York) and steal a stud wideout. Howie should probably send Denver a few Edible Arrangements for another reason: It was reported he’d offered to trade for Russell Wilson last off-season, a deal that was only nixed because ­Wilson shut it down. Who knows what Howie would have given up for a quarterback who ended up having his worst pro season? Perhaps Jalen Hurts would now be the centerpiece of the Broncos, and you’re not reading this story about Howie’s genius. Choose your own cliché here: Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, and the best deals you make are often the ones you don’t make.

Didinger shares a story about the former head football coach of C.B. West, Mike ­Carey, who invited Ray to speak at a program he put together called Dream Big, designed to motivate students to set goals and aim high. Didinger was honored and happy to participate, but he said the person who really should be the keynote was Howie Roseman. It was about a week after the draft this past April, but Didinger sent the GM a pitch via email. Howie said yes. “I really do believe that whole notion of dreaming big, setting a goal for yourself, and then you’re going to go achieve it, no matter how many people tell you you can’t — that’s Howie’s life story,” Didinger says.

He’s still only 48, so it’s a story that’s far from complete, as Howie himself noted at the Villanova sports symposium. Asked how long he wants to keep doing this grueling yet satisfying work — and, more intriguingly, whether he plans to keep doing it here in Philadelphia — Howie answered the former but was more vague about the latter. “I love what I do,” he said. “I love competing. There’s no part of me that wants to do anything else.” Perhaps the most important contract he’ll negotiate for the future of the Eagles will be his own.

Published as “Howie Did It” in the September 2023 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

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How Eagles GM Howie Roseman built the best roster in the NFL

• Senior Writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine
• Born and raised in Western Montana
• Spent 11 years as a feature writer for The Baltimore Sun

WHILE CHATTING WITH players and coaches before a November matchup against the Texans, Howie Roseman, Philadelphia Eagles GM and executive vice president, spotted a group of Eagles fans in the first row of Houston's NRG Stadium.

The fans began chanting his name. Roseman, with noticeable swagger, walked slowly toward them, making a beeline for one fan in particular, a man wearing a Phillies jersey who was holding up a hand-drawn, poster board sign.

"Howie You Are Forgiven!" the top half of the sign read. On the bottom half, the name of Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown , acquired in a trade by Roseman during the offseason, loomed large over the deleted names of previous Eagles wide receivers: Nelson Agholor , J.J.-Arcega Whiteside and Jalen Reagor . All Roseman draft acquisitions; all no longer with the team; and all universally regarded as busts.

Roseman, stone-faced, hushed the group of fans, then pointed his finger at the man holding the sign.

"I'm F'ing forgiven for your first F'ing Super Bowl?" Roseman quipped. "F you!"

The fans erupted with cheers. Roseman let loose a massive grin. He even posed for a selfie before sauntering back toward the field. The video was posted to Twitter and became a viral moment of the best kind.

It's hard to imagine, with any other NFL franchise, a frequently maligned general manager shouting F-bombs at fans without controversy erupting. Close your eyes and it's easy to picture a tearful apology, or a carefully worded statement expressing contrition. But in Philadelphia, the exchange might as well have been an expression of familial love.

"Howie has been hated and loved, then hated again, then loved again," Eagles center Jason Kelce says. "It just shows you that being the general manager is really hard. There are a lot of things that go into that job. But I've been really happy to see him persevere through all that. It's tough, especially in this city."

Philadelphia (14-3) enters the playoffs with the NFL's best record and is one of the favorites to hoist the Lombardi Trophy next month. The league's most temperamental fan base, one that was openly calling for his firing 21 months ago, has embraced its GM once again.

It is a development very few would have predicted in 2020, when the Eagles went 4-11-1, then cut ties with quarterback Carson Wentz and coach Doug Pederson, the two men handpicked by Roseman in 2016 to be the face of the franchise for the foreseeable future. Getting rid of Wentz despite trading up to get him (and signing him to a large contract extension in 2019) would have cost most general managers their job. Instead, it jump-started one of the most unlikely rebirths in the history of Philadelphia sports. In the past two years, Roseman, who is 47, has assembled the NFL's best roster.

He has earned (for the moment) the right to peacock.

Roseman is wary -- to say the least -- of taking a victory lap. ESPN reached out to him several times throughout the season hoping he would be willing to discuss the things that have shaped him during his eventful, volatile, mercurial 23-year tenure with the Eagles. He repeatedly declined.

"Howie is very sensitive to the unintended interpretations that can come from talking about yourself in a piece like this," a team spokesperson said. "Humble and hungry is his goal right now."

It was an understandable decision. After all, few NFL executives know better than Roseman does how quickly fortunes can change. It has even played out in miniature this season.

Although Philadelphia looked like the NFL's best team for the majority of 2022, a shoulder injury to quarterback Jalen Hurts nearly cost the Eagles the No. 1 overall seed in the playoffs. Suddenly the juggernaut Roseman had expertly assembled looked vulnerable.

It might have been unsettling to some, but not to Roseman.

"He has died and came back many times," says Philadelphia defensive end Brandon Graham , a 13-year veteran and one of Roseman's original draft picks.

The story of Roseman's rise -- from never playing organized football growing up in Marlboro, New Jersey, to becoming one of the NFL's most powerful executives -- has been told countless times. It is the stuff of legend within league circles.

The persistence of the teenage boy who handwrote notes begging every general manager around the league to let him get his foot in the door is still evident in Roseman's personality today. But that story is also old hat. A general manager, ultimately, is only as good as his most recent transactions, a truism that got us thinking: What if the best way to explain Roseman, and all that he has learned, is strictly through the moves he made to rebuild the Eagles?

April 24, 2020: Eagles select Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts with the 53rd pick

IT'S EASY TO forget, at the close of a season when Hurts has been one of the leading candidates for the NFL MVP award, how controversial it was for the Eagles to select him back in 2020. Wentz was coming off a 9-7 season in which he had led Philadelphia to a playoff berth and had recently signed the largest contract extension in team history. There were some internal concerns about Wentz's attitude and his injury history, but from the outside, it looked like a baffling move.

On draft night, even Hurts had no inkling that he might be a Philadelphia Eagle. In a recent interview on Jason and Travis Kelce 's podcast "New Heights," Hurts mentioned that when he saw a Pennsylvania area code pop up on his cellphone, he was convinced it was the Steelers reaching out to let him know he was headed to Pittsburgh.

Eagles fans were equally confused. Some were livid, lighting up the airwaves to share their misgivings and grievances. Why was Roseman grabbing a quarterback instead of addressing holes in the defense? Was he trying to undermine Wentz's already-shaky confidence? Didn't he grasp that it was exactly the kind of gamble that gets most general managers fired?

Roseman's original mentor, former Eagles general manager Joe Banner, viewed it differently. It was proof that Roseman had internalized maybe the most important lesson Banner had tried to instill from the beginning: Don't be scared to change course.

"You have to take your ego out of the equation and take out the fear of losing your job," Banner says. "Those are the two things that not many people in the NFL can do. We tried to make it part of our culture, and I know it is something [Roseman] thinks is important. We're all going to make a bunch of mistakes. And the question is: How costly are your mistakes? Are you willing to admit your mistakes and move on? He could have stuck with Carson Wentz and they would've probably struggled for two or three or four more years. Or he could have said, 'I'm not sure this is the right answer. Let's go grab Jalen Hurts.' He understood the notion that if you fix a mistake reasonably quickly, then the price you pay for it is actually fairly small."

It took time for the gamble to come to fruition. Wentz went 3-8-1 over his next 12 starts, was sacked a league-worst 50 times and threw 15 interceptions. He was benched for the last four games of the season, giving the Eagles a chance to see what they had in Hurts. (He showed flashes of promise but also considerable flaws.) By the time Roseman made the decision to fire coach Doug Pederson and trade Wentz to the Colts for draft picks, the calls for him to lose his own job in Philadelphia had reached a fever pitch. Ten days before the 2021 NFL draft, a thunderous "Fire Howie!" chant broke out during a Phillies home game.

Behind the scenes, Roseman continued maneuvering.

"Really good general managers and head coaches don't get stuck on trying to prove themselves," Banner says. "They get stuck on getting it right and winning."

Sept. 11, 2021: Eagles sign tackle Jordan Mailata to $64 million extension

If Banner hadn't taken a chance on Roseman when he was fresh out of Fordham Law School in 2000, it's not a stretch to suggest his NFL career likely never would have happened. At the time, he was viewed as little more than a nuisance.

"I remember I was literally receiving a letter daily from this person, Howie Roseman, and I had no idea who it was," Banner says. "I'm not even sure how, but I was in a conversation with Mike Tannenbaum, who at the time was the [director of pro player development] of the Jets, and somehow we realized that we were both getting a letter from this guy every day. We had a kind of humorous conversation: Is he the most driven person we've ever met, or is he a crazy person? At that point we weren't really quite sure."

But Roseman had unknowingly reached out to a kindred spirit in Banner, who also had never played football at a high level, working as a sports producer and clothing store owner before he was hired by Philadelphia in 1994.

"Maybe that left me more open-minded than others because I'd experienced it personally," Banner says. "I probably thought he had the same qualities that were helping me be successful."

It wasn't just Banner who helped educate Roseman. It was also coach Andy Reid, the two men constructing what would eventually become one of the greatest incubators for executive talent the NFL has ever seen. In addition to Roseman, the Eagles would mold the futures of four other eventual NFL general managers: Brett Veach (Chiefs), Ryan Grigson (Colts), Tom Heckert (Browns) and Jason Licht (Buccaneers).

"Andy built this environment where people were willing to speak up and challenge each other, as long as it was done in a respectful way," says Veach, who worked as an assistant coach under Reid and then as a scout under Roseman during his time in Philadelphia.

"I think that's the biggest thing we all learned. If you believed in something, you shouldn't be afraid to speak up. I think the opposite side of that is a room where everyone is quiet because they're all trying to keep their jobs. Andy and Howie didn't want that."

Traces of that philosophy can be found in numerous moves Roseman has made over the years, but none is more obvious than the discovery of Mailata, one of the NFL's most improbable unearthed gems.

The 6-foot-8, 348-pound Mailata was a rugby league player from Australia and had never played organized football before he showed up at the NFL's International Player Pathway Program pro day. But based on the strong recommendations of Brandon Brown, then the Eagles' assistant director of pro scouting, and offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland, Roseman traded up 17 spots in the seventh round to take a chance on him with the 233rd pick.

Philadelphia knew Mailata was the very definition of taking a flier on a raw prospect. Improbably, over the next two seasons, it became clear the team had found its left tackle of the future. He became a starter at the beginning of 2021, inspiring Roseman to lock him up with a $64 million contract extension that now looks like a bargain. Mailata was an alternate to the Pro Bowl in 2022.

"Howie has been nothing but great to me," Mailata says. "I've got nothing bad to say because of the opportunities he's given me and the patience he had with me when I was struggling my first two years. He told me, 'You have to be patient.' I was learning the game and trying to be patient at the same time, but you bet your ass I was nervous."

Roseman earned the reputation early in his career for being prickly with certain players, particularly after poor performances, but current Eagles say he has matured in recent years.

"After I played poorly in our Thursday game, I walked past him and he said, 'Stop beating yourself up,'" Mailata says. "I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'I know you. You're beating yourself up. You're a great player. Just go back out there and start doing your thing.' I thought, 'You're F'ing right, Howie! You're right.'"

Nov. 22, 2021: Eagles sign linebacker T.J. Edwards to one-year extension

It's not hard to find legitimate criticisms of Roseman. The airwaves in Philadelphia have been filled with them during his tenure with the Eagles, with fans frequently fixating on his somewhat-spotty record in the draft. Mention names like Danny Watkins , Marcus Smith or Jaiquawn Jarrett to any Eagles fan and it likely will elicit audible groans.

Roseman's draft record might be mixed, but his penchant for finding cheap talent elsewhere, through free agency or trades, might be the most underrated aspect of his legacy with the Eagles. His ability to find overlooked players who can fill lineup holes is dynamic and as good as that of any executive in football.

"I know he's missed on some draft picks, but nobody is going to be 100% on that," Jason Kelce says. "The thing that I've been the most impressed with is how quickly we move on from down years or bad salary-cap situations. That guy is so good at moving the cap around, so good at finding value. All these things are strengths of his that people are looking past over the years because people tend to focus on hitting on draft picks. There are not many teams that can get out of a salary-cap issue in one year. All of a sudden he does it."

Edwards is the best recent example of this. Despite being an All-American at Wisconsin, he went undrafted in 2019, with most teams convinced he wasn't big enough or fast enough to be an NFL starter. But the Philadelphia scouting department saw something beyond his measurables and signed him as a free agent. Over the next three years, the team watched him grow from a special teams demon into a starter and, eventually, a team leader who calls the signals for the defense.

Just as Edwards was blossoming, Roseman signed him to a contract extension worth $3.2 million, securing his services for the 2022 season, an absolute bargain for one of the NFL's leading tacklers.

"I actually thought it was a trick, but it was true," Edwards explains when talking about Roseman's initial call. "It actually felt like a place that cared. Everyone from the top down makes you feel like they are truly in this together and they want the best for you. I think that's pretty rare."

March 14, 2022: Eagles sign free agent linebacker Haason Reddick to three-year, $45 million contract

If Graham squints a little, he can look across the locker room at Reddick and almost see a version of his younger self.

Both men were drafted in the first round, each at No. 13, and both men initially struggled to find their footing in the NFL. Graham battled injuries; coaches couldn't figure out whether Reddick should play linebacker or defensive end. Both men were, for a time, labeled draft busts.

But as their careers evolved, each player blossomed. Graham emerged as an All-Pro in his seventh season (2016); Reddick, who was signed by Roseman as a free agent after stints with the Cardinals and Panthers, earned second-team All-Pro honors this season.

At 34, Graham is now a part-time player and likely is nearing the end of his career. Reddick, 28, was named the NFC Defensive Player of the Month for December, and his 16 sacks ranked second in the NFL this year behind Nick Bosa . But together, they are part of one of the most lethal pass rushes in the game. In 2022, the Eagles became the first team in NFL history to have four players with 10-plus sacks: Reddick (16), Graham (11), Josh Sweat (11), Javon Hargrave (11).

"Howie is a good dude," says Graham, whose 11-sack season was a career best. "For him to stick with me this long, I got nothing but respect. People mature and evolve, and he has too. Look at me, going from a starter to from off the bench, I look at it a different way. I'm the knockout punch coming in. People know what I can do. Now I can do it faster because I ain't out there all the time. I got to live it just as much as I say it. It's maturity as much as situational."

Graham admits he wasn't always sure he was going to be part of Philadelphia's climb back to the top of the NFL, even though he authored one of the most memorable moments in Eagles history: the strip sack of Tom Brady at the end of Super Bowl LII. One of Roseman's strengths is that he's not sentimental, but in 2021, the Eagles elected to sign Graham to a one-year extension to help bridge the gap between eras.

"All players want to know is that you're doing everything you can to win football games. That needs to be the emphasis, and Howie does that," Kelce says. "I don't think he gives up on people, though. I've had downs throughout my career when he could have given up on me, but they've navigated really well when it's time to move on and when it's time to continue to give a guy an opportunity."

As Graham has aged, he has grown to understand Roseman's roster-building philosophies.

"One thing I know, he's not comfortable," Graham says. "He's still making moves. I'm prideful too, and I try not to let it kill me. But I can tell that he takes a lot of pride in putting together a real good team and being strategic. I mean, look at how we got A.J. Brown. That was hype! This whole year has been hype because it's the most trades I've seen since I've been here. It's blockbuster stuff happening every month. It's fun to see."

April 28, 2022: Eagles acquire AJ. Brown via trade with the Tennessee Titans

Earlier this season, ESPN reached out to one of Roseman's contemporaries -- also a current league executive -- to ask whether people around the league trust the Eagles general manager. In a survey of NFL agents done by The Athletic in 2021 and 2022, Roseman was voted the executive they trust the least two years running. The relationship between agents and general managers, of course, is bound to be contentious. Did the same hold true for rival executives?

The contemporary -- who agreed to speak candidly on the condition of anonymity -- intimated that it was true, Howie isn't widely trusted. But maybe that wasn't a bad thing.

"How many people around the league and in the building trust Bill Belichick?" the executive says. "Probably it would be very low. How many people trust what he's doing for the team? Probably very high. It's the same with Howie. When you're so smart, and you make the smart decisions, you don't have a lot of trust in the building."

That hasn't stopped other front offices from making deals with Roseman, even though he has had a knack for coming out ahead of late. The trade for Brown -- which cost the Eagles only the 18th and 101st picks in the 2022 draft -- now looks like such a fleecing that it might have played a role in costing Titans general manager Jon Robinson his job .

Despite Tennessee never having finished worse than 9-7 since Robinson took over, and even though he had signed a contract extension at the beginning of the year, ownership fired him the week after Brown caught eight passes for 119 yards and two touchdowns in a 35-10 Eagles win over the Titans. It was impossible not to connect the dots, particularly after Brown said he had been hoping he might retire a Titan.

"I wanted to make them regret that decision," Brown told reporters after the game.

Roseman admitted, months after the acquisition of Brown, that part of what motivated him to take a big swing was a mistake he had made in trying to find a No. 1 receiver.

In the 2020 draft, the Eagles had the 21st pick in the first round and grabbed Jalen Reagor, a speedy wideout from TCU. Reagor never found much success with Philadelphia, catching only three touchdowns in two seasons before being traded to Minnesota. But what made the pick even more painful -- particularly for Eagles fans -- is what came right after it. The Vikings, picking 22nd, selected LSU's Justin Jefferson , then watched him bloom into the NFL's best wide receiver.

"I think one of my many weaknesses is that I spend more time thinking about my mistakes than I do any of the successes we may have had," Roseman said in September in an interview with 94WIP, a Philadelphia radio station. "I think it continuously motivates me to get better. Whenever we do something like that, I go back and I look at the process and how we came to that decision. It's obvious, I'm not going to sit here and lie, we'd love to have that moment back. ... That's on me, 100 percent. At the end of the day, I'm responsible for all of that. But I also promise you one thing: If I make a mistake, I'm going to do everything in my power to make it up."

In Week 18, Brown broke the Eagles' single-season record for receiving yards with 1,496, a mark that had held up since 1983.

"This place has been everything I expected," Brown says.

Jan. 21, 2021: Eagles hire Nick Sirianni to be their next head coach

One thing had become clear by the end of Doug Pederson's tenure with the Eagles: The team's analytics department and its coaching staff were no longer seeing eye to eye. Collaboration and communication were, at best, strained. The Philadelphia media were filled with leaks hinting that Pederson was frustrated with constantly being second-guessed by ownership, and the scouting department didn't feel its analysis was being taken into consideration when it came to personnel decisions.

The harmony fostered during the Super Bowl season had completely faded. Although he was initially expected to return, after a series of tense meetings with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and Roseman on how to reshape the future of the franchise, Pederson was fired.

Sirianni, a former Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator, turned out to be the savior few predicted. He wasn't among Philadelphia's initial targets , and after he got the job, the reviews weren't particularly glowing. Several outlets implied that Roseman was installing Sirianni as a puppet who would let him and Lurie involve themselves in the game plan.

In two seasons, Sirianni has gone 23-11 and made the playoffs twice. Along the way, he has earned a reputation as one of the league's most player-friendly coaches. A building once filled with strife is (for the most part) harmonious again. Most importantly, he has turned Hurts into an MVP candidate.

"The relationship with Jalen, I just really appreciate the quarterback-head coach relationship that we have and how it's grown," Sirianni says. "We know more and more about each other, not only in football but in our personal lives, too. That's what's so important to me in coaching and playing; the relationships that you have and the connecting that you have."

Aug. 30, 2022: Eagles acquire safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson from Saints in exchange for draft picks

Gardner-Johnson never thought of himself as someone who needed a dose of humility. His swagger felt like part of his DNA. In his mind, it helped him thrive in the cutthroat world playing cornerback, first at the University of Florida, then with the Saints. But after a promising rookie season, Gardner-Johnson's standing with New Orleans became tenuous.

He was involved in a fight with a teammate during practice. He got into another altercation during a game. He became frustrated over his contract situation, held out during training camp and eventually stopped speaking to coaches. When Roseman called to inquire about his availability, the Saints were happy to let him go for a fifth-round pick and two sixth-round picks.

It could have been a risk, bringing in a malcontent and asking him to play a major role on one of the NFL's best defenses. But Gardner-Johnson saw it differently. With cornerback Darius Slay on one side and James Bradberry on the other, there wasn't going to be a spot for him in the lineup unless he humbled himself and committed to playing off the ball as the Eagles' deep safety. In New Orleans, he had played mostly in the slot.

"I mean, I ain't even gonna cap with you, you got two other corners [in Philadelphia] that can cover better than me," Gardner-Johnson says. "I think I was covering all down in New Orleans, but when I got a chance to play with some lockdown corners, I just figured I'd play my role."

The result? He tied for the league lead in interceptions (six) despite playing only 12 games because of a lacerated kidney. He played every defensive snap in the Eagles' regular-season finale against the Giants.

"I get treated very, very, very, very, very, like, better than I was in New Orleans," Gardner-Johnson says. "And I ain't saying nothing bad. I'm just, you play better ball when you're around better guys and you're around better athletes. This is the result of it."

Roseman is no stranger to the idea that a little humility can lead to a rebirth, something every veteran player knows well. In 2015, then-Philadelphia coach Chip Kelly won a power struggle with Roseman, gaining final say over the roster, including having final decision-making power over the draft and free agency. Publicly, the team announced that Roseman was being promoted to the role of executive vice president of football operations, still overseeing the salary-cap and scouting departments, but neither the media nor the players bought it. Around the league, the move was widely viewed as a demotion.

Most NFL executives would have taken the hint, punched up their résumé and tried to rebuild their reputation elsewhere. But Roseman put his head down, trudged into the office each day, studied the salary cap and made phone calls around the league, asking for advice about how he might grow from the setback.

"I give him credit for his resilience," agent Leigh Steinberg says. "I talked to him several times during that period. Even though he'd lost his power, he never lost touch with a lot of people in the game. He stayed on the phone. I think he wanted to learn from what happened and do a brutal self-assessment. And he handled himself with dignity and class, and as a result, I think a lot of people were rooting for him to come back."

When Kelly was fired by Lurie near the end of the 2015 season, it wasn't a huge surprise that Roseman gradually reclaimed his old role, although he wouldn't officially be named general manager for a second time until 2019. He had earned his second chance. When the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2017, Kelce couldn't resist addressing the elephant in the room during the celebratory parade, declaring that Roseman had returned "a different man" and "an underdog."

Roseman's arc is, in many respects, the perfect Philadelphia story.

"In this city, you've got to have thick skin," Kelce explains. "And you have to be self-confident. And self-aware. The city can be very loud telling you when you're great and when you're bad, but you have to be firmly aware of what you think is right, what the coaches think is right and what the players think is right. It's a city that can be hard for a lot of reasons, but I truly believe it's going to make you better.

"Every day in this building, you better come ready to go, every time you step on the field, you better come ready to go. Because it doesn't matter if you're undefeated, if you have a s--- game, somebody is going to let you know. You ain't just coasting through a season like you're the Chargers. There is a sense of urgency here on the East Coast, and in Philadelphia, with sports teams. It can be hard. But it can also be incredibly rewarding."

Watch CBS News

Eagles' Howie Roseman, Youngest GM In NFL, Living Childhood Dream

March 9, 2013 / 9:29 AM EST / CBS Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Howie Roseman worked a long time to become the youngest general manager in the NFL.

As a kid - yes, the story goes back that far - Roseman would toss a football around in his backyard and wait for his friends to return from practice to play pickup games. He hoped to become an NFL quarterback, maybe even the next Richard Todd or Ken O'Brien.

But he couldn't even play pee wee football. His mom wouldn't sign the permission slip.

That didn't dampen Roseman's feelings. His love for football went beyond passion. By the time he was 7, he was obsessed.

"From the first game I watched, Jets vs. Bills in 1981, I was incredibly hooked," Roseman said in an interview during which he recalled his career from his expansive office overlooking the field at the Philadelphia Eagles' practice facility.

If nothing else, Roseman's life in the NFL offers a lesson in persistence.

He began reading football magazines, watching games, following all the players and taking notes as a kid. Born in Brooklyn and raised in North Jersey, his favorite team was the New York Jets.

"I would read everything and watch all the games I could," he said. "I remember it would be Labor Day, the last weekend for summer, and my mom would want to go to the beach. I'd tell her I wanted to stay home to watch football."

On a plane ride with his mother and sister to visit his grandparents in Florida, a chance encounter left a lasting impression on Roseman. Little Howie, a Mets fans, wore a New York Yankees cap on the flight. He met a friendly man who told him his son was drafted by the Bronx Bombers. When the man said his son was John Elway, Roseman immediately replied: "Aren't you the head coach of Stanford?"

Roseman talked to Jack Elway the rest of the flight, impressing him with his vast knowledge of football. When the plane landed, Elway gave Roseman's mother a business card.

"I was 7 or 8 years old and he said to my mom: 'I never met a kid this age who is so passionate and knows so much about football,'" Roseman said. "I didn't know anyone in football. That to me was someone who believed in me. My whole life, I held onto that one meeting. When I met John Elway for the first time, I told him this story."

Roseman wasn't blessed with the size or skill to play football - he's 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, though he wrestled at 125 in high school. But his conversation with Jack Elway made him realize he could still pursue a career in the NFL. From that moment on, it was his goal.

"I was 8 or 9 years old and I would tell people that I wanted to be a general manager in the National Football League, and they would laugh at me," he said.

Roseman not only grew up to fulfill his dream, he did it at a young age. Roseman was only 34 when Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie named him general manager on Jan. 29, 2010. Three years later, he's still the youngest person in the league to hold that title.

With free agency set to begin in the NFL next week, Roseman is in the middle of a critical offseason for the Eagles. The team finished 4-12 and fired coach Andy Reid after 14 mostly successful years in Philadelphia. Roseman played a key role in luring Chip Kelly away from Oregon to replace Reid. He also made other moves to bolster the front office, including hiring Tom Gamble as vice president of player personnel.

Despite tremendous success for much of the past decade, the Eagles are desperately seeking their first NFL title since 1960. Roseman gladly accepts that challenge.

"Everyone here is committed to winning the Super Bowl," Roseman said. "That's powerful when everyone is united for the same goal and it's all about teamwork."

Considering his own rise to power, you have to think Roseman's team has an honest chance. Whenever it has come to football, the guy simply hasn't taken "No" for an answer - regardless how many times he was rejected along the way.

Roseman was in elementary school when he started evaluating players and making draft predictions. Other kids watched cartoons; he was a draft geek.

"I'd have my draft board and I would sit there with a note pad and pretend I was picking," he said. "This is before the Internet. At that time, I would do this as if I was picking for the Jets. That was throughout my childhood and my teenage years."

During his senior year at Marlboro High School in New Jersey, Roseman began sending letters to NFL teams asking for an internship. He was looking for any way to get his foot in the door.

"I got rejected, rejected, rejected," he said.

Roseman moved onto college, choosing the University of Florida because he loved the Gators. He figured he should try coaching and work up to the front office, so he applied for a job with the football program.

"Again, I was rejected, rejected, rejected," he said.

Roseman moved off campus his sophomore year and found a new roommate who shared his passion for football. His dream was to become an NFL head coach. Like Roseman, he didn't play, didn't coach and had no connections.

The roommate was Jedd Fisch. He's now the offensive coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

"He'd watch me make picks on draft weekend and make fun of me. I would yell at a pick and he would say: 'What do you know?'" Roseman said. "Then we'd watch games together and he would question a call on a play and I'd say: 'What do you know?'"

Roseman continued sending a round of letters to NFL teams twice a year. When he got rejection letters back, he sent "Thank you" notes. Finally, during his senior year at Florida, former Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum called him. At that time, Tannenbaum worked in New York's personnel department.

"He had an untraditional background, too," Roseman said. "When he called, he said: 'I'll give you 10 minutes and the reason is I was in a situation like that and I can help you for advice.'"

Tannenbaum told Roseman no team would hire him as a scout. He advised him to get a law degree and sell himself as a salary cap expert.

So, Roseman went to Fordham Law School and continued his pursuit.

"Same thing. More letters. More rejections," he said. "I would've worked anywhere. I just wanted an opportunity, a summer internship. I would've worked for free."

By now, though, Roseman wasn't just sending letters to teams. He sent his own scouting reports and individual breakdowns of players by position.

"I think about it now and if someone did that to me, I'd wonder 'Who does this guy think he is?'" Roseman joked.

Roseman even thought about trying to break into the XFL during its brief existence but, before he could apply, he got his first break. Tannenbaum had become the director of pro personnel for the Jets and called to interview him for an internship.

"He said: 'Every three resumes, I see a copy of yours. And then after it, I see letters from you thanking me for rejecting you,'" Roseman said.

After a phone interview, Roseman became a finalist for the job. When he interviewed with Tannenbaum in person, he met former Jets coach Bill Parcells for the first time.

"I go to shake his hand and he says: 'Howie, huh? You sure you want to go with that?'" Roseman said. "I said: 'What do you mean, Coach?' He says: 'I know one guy who goes by Howie and not Howard and he's Howie Long and he's 275 pounds. He's a little more intimidating than you right now.' So that's my meeting with Bill Parcells."

Roseman didn't get the job. Instead, it went to a former graduate assistant for one of the coaches. But Tannenbaum told Roseman he'd recommend him if another team had an opening.

Hoping to stay close to New York, Roseman began calling the Eagles. After former team president Joe Banner sent him a letter saying he'd consider him if a position opened, Roseman stepped it up. He kept calling Banner, but got his assistant instead. He begged her to help him get an interview with Banner and told her to have her boss call Tannenbaum.

Roseman didn't know this at the time, but Banner later told him he did call Tannenbaum - partly to find out if he was dealing with a stalker.

In the end, Roseman didn't get a job after his first meeting with Banner. But he was eventually offered a non-paid summer internship in 2000. The Eagles were still in dingy, old Veterans Stadium then. Roseman didn't even have a desk. Banner made room for him at the end of a table next to his assistant, the same woman Roseman pestered with all those phone calls.

"I remember asking her why she fought for me and she said: 'Howie, I'm from Philly. I love passion,'" Roseman said. "And then she said it was women's intuition. She's an unbelievable person."

Roseman spent the next six months waking up at 4:15 a.m. to catch a train from New York to Philadelphia. He got home late at night. Instead of paying off his student loans, he was accumulating more debt paying for those expensive train rides.

"I was pursuing my dream," he said. "I was in the NFL. No matter how tired I was, when I walked up to the Vet and saw where I was going to work every day, I was fired up, I was energetic and I do the same now."

Roseman would spend long hours in the office during the day and join the guys in the personnel department afterward. He was fortunate that Lurie, Banner and Reid allowed him to learn whatever he could about scouting and evaluating players.

"They would open the door to me and let me watch tape and write reports, so I was doing the cap stuff and contract stuff during the day and then at night they would expose me to personnel, which was my passion and what I wanted to do," Roseman said. "So I was getting trained on that. And then when Modrak left and Tom Heckert came in as GM, I was one of the few holdovers from the front office. I wasn't the new guy on the staff anymore."

Roseman's hard work and diligence paid off. In 2003, he was named the Eagles director of football administration.

"I started doing draft reports and going on the road," he said. "It was an unbelievable experience and I'm very fortunate the people here exposed me to it."

More success followed. In 2006, Roseman was named vice president of football administration. Two years later, he was elevated to vice president of player personnel. Then, after Heckert left for Cleveland in 2010, Roseman replaced him as the Eagles' GM. With Banner and Reid around, it was more of an advisory role.

Now, it's Roseman's show.

"One of the most important lessons that I want to teach my kids when I look back at it is when you have a goal and you decide early enough that you want to achieve it, you are so far ahead of the pack because so many people when they are going through college, they're trying to figure out what they're doing," Roseman said. "So when you are in one direction, you have an edge. Not that it's going to happen, but you have an edge and I was very lucky someone gave me a break."

All he has to do now is win a Super Bowl.

(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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How T.O. gave Roseman his ‘Welcome to the NFL' moment

By reuben frank, eagles insider • published april 5, 2023 • updated on april 6, 2023 at 11:02 am.

By the time he was about 45 minutes into his interview with Jason Kelce on the latest New Heights podcast, Howie Roseman had definitely let his guard down.

Roseman had already spoken at length about his own philosophy of roster building, Jordan Davis’s potential, why the Eagles drafted Kelce in 2010 and a lot more, and he wasn’t slowing down.

So Kelce kept peppering him with questions, and Roseman, a notoriously reticent interview with the mainstream media, kept talking.

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And talking and talking and talking.

By the time Kelce and Roseman finished their hour-long chat, Roseman had opened up in a way he never had before in the nearly quarter of a century since Joe Banner first hired him as an intern in 1999.

And it was right around the 46-minute mark where Kelce asked Roseman to share his “Welcome to the NFL moment.”

Howie didn’t hesitate.

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“I came in and my first real full season (as a full-time employee) was 2000 and we made the playoffs and then we went to the (NFC) Championship Game in 2001,” he said. “We lost to St. Louis - St. Louis was the Greatest Show on Turf, we played really well, Tory Vincent got hurt during the week, Buck (Correll Buckhalter) got hurt at the end of the first half, he was doing really well (9-for-55 in the first half), and we lost the game probably to a better team.

“The next year, went to the (NFC) Championship Game in 2002, it was the last game at the Vet, we played Tampa, we come out, and Donovan had gotten hurt and missed a bunch of games, Brian Mitchell returns the opening kick like 50 yards (actually 70), Duce takes it 50 to the house (actually 20), the whole stadium’s shaking. We wound up losing (27-10). Joe Jurevicius takes like a 71-yard slant to the house (actually to the 5), Ronde Barber picks one off for 6 and we lose. 

"The next year we play Carolina at home in the Championship Game, Donovan gets hurt, he punctures a rib in the first quarter, Koy Detmer comes in and we lose to Carolina.”

None of this really has anything to do with Roseman’s Welcome to the NFL Moment, but it’s amazing just to hear him talking about those three straight NFC Championship Game losses. Remember, at this point he was still an entry-level front office employee. In 2000 and 2001, he was salary cap specialist and staff counsel and from 2003 through 2005 he was director of football administration.

It wasn’t until 2010 – when he had been with the organization in one form or another for 11 years – that he became general manager.

But that’s a story for another day.

Howie picks up the story going into 2004.

“The next year, we sign T.O., we sign Jevon Kearse, we go to the Super Bowl, we lose in the Super Bowl,” he said “And then the next year (2005) we come back after losing, there was an issue with T.O. You probably heard about it, and it was awful that year. 

“We end up 5-11 and it’s just a bad year. Donovan got hurt, T.O. got suspended (and after the season) Andy (Reid) basically says, ‘Hey everyone’s tired, everyone’s freaking exhausted, let’s take two weeks and we’ll reconvene and we’ll have plenty of time to talk about the team.’

“At the time I was traveling a little bit, on the road, and I was like, ‘All right, I’m going to go to South Florida, go to Miami for a couple days and get some sun on my face, and I get upgraded (to first class on the flight). 

“So I’m like, ‘Man, maybe things are turning a little bit.’ So I get on the plane and the pilot comes on and says we’re just waiting for one passenger and then we’ll be on our way to Miami and I realize the seat in front of me is open, so the passenger we’re waiting for is the person that’s going to sit in front of me. 

“And as they’re about to close the doors T.O., walks on the plane, and so T.O. walks over, he looks at me, I kind of was in the middle of that (in 2005), dealing with that, and he kind of looks at me, nods his head, he takes his seat, and he jacks it into my lap for the whole 2 ½ hours.

“And he gets off and I was like, ‘Have a good trip to Miami!’ And he was like BLEEP YOU. And I was like, ‘OK, so it’s not all going to be championship games and Super Bowls,’ and I think that was my first moment where I realized that what we had done was unusual and it was hard to get to. 

“Great player, but it was definitely welcome to the NFL.”

For the record, after Roseman shared this story, T.O. denied he cursed at Roseman:

“Anybody that knows me, knows I wouldn’t have said Bleep You to anyone! But ok, if that’s how you remember it then oh well.” 

Anybody that knows me, knows I wouldn’t have said F*ck You to anyone! But ok, if that’s how you remember it then oh well 🤷🏾‍♂️ https://t.co/sFK3WvFUIE — Terrell Owens (@terrellowens) April 2, 2023

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How Howie Roseman took the Eagles to the Super Bowl, going from exile to executive of the year

Howie Roseman survived a one-year banishment from football decisions, assumed more power with the Eagles than before, and was named NFL executive of the year for his job building a Super Bowl roster.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Every member of the Eagles scattered across an arena floor on Monday night, and a group of fans spotted the one they most wanted to cheer.

Howie! Howie! Howie!

A few years ago, their calls would have included more venom than reverence. The object of their attention was once a polarizing figure in Philadelphia – and even at the Eagles' own facility. Six days before the most significant game in 13 years, the once-exiled, now-celebrated football executive was treated like a movie star. For anyone adhering to the adage that there are no second acts in life, try explaining Howie Roseman at the Super Bowl as the architect of the Eagles.

Roseman, 42, eschewed his chance for a victory lap Monday night – but it would be within reason to take one. Once the NFL's youngest general manager, Roseman survived a one-year banishment from football decisions after Chip Kelly won a 2015 power struggle. Roseman assumed more power than before and helped the Eagles to more success than the most ardent Roseman supporters could have dreamed two years ago. Roseman earned executive-of-the-year honors for his job building a Super Bowl roster, offering vindication after career obituaries once bore his name.

"This is a lot bigger for me," Roseman said. "This is an opportunity to do something this organization, this team, has never done. When you say that, when you think about that atmosphere and the opportunity we have, there's no way to think about anything else than to capitalize on the moment."

Roseman offered similar versions of that answer throughout 40-plus minutes of questioning, deferring the credit to owner Jeffrey Lurie, his staff, his coaches, and his players. And though the public humility might have been strategic, it was also fitting. Because Roseman, who called the year away "probably one of the best things to happen to me," returned a better version — and as he explains it, with a better understanding of the value of the people around him.

Back to school

Roseman didn't spend his year away waiting. He spent it learning.

Without football decision-making responsibilities in 2015, Roseman crisscrossed the professional sports landscape and added stamps to his passport while studying management elsewhere. He worked in the Eagles' South Philadelphia offices throughout his professional career, and though he was still under Lurie's employ, he used the year to pick the brains of executives in other sports. When he explained how the Super Bowl was an organizational achievement, it wasn't merely deferring credit. It was understanding all the dynamics involved in decision-making that go beyond the traditional notion of a general manager picking a player.

"I think during that year when you have the opportunity to talk to people in Major League Baseball, in the NBA, in the NHL, in the EPL, and even working outside sports, you see that it's hard to have one person who just makes every single decision and runs every single department," Roseman said. "Sometimes we forget … it's big business. We're managing payroll, we have a bunch of resources, and we're trying to hire a lot of good people. Really, I think maybe we're the last sport that doesn't do that as much."

This was Lurie's prevailing point when he praised Roseman last week, noting how the football operations executive in 2018 is "so much more than simply what has been in the past decades with scouting." Scouting is one element of the role, but there are other facets of the organization that contribute to a team's success and fall under the executive's umbrella. It requires salary cap management and strategic use of resources. There are parts of the operation that range from the training staff to the equipment staff to team security that require attention.

"There's not a day that goes by where I'm just sitting in my office and I go, 'What are we doing with the roster?' " Roseman said. "That's why running the department is so big. There's not enough time in the day."

Roster renovation

For all the distribution of credit and organizational jargon that Roseman can recite, it ultimately comes down to picking the right players and managing the resources to sustain success. Winning in the NFL is the ultimate meritocracy: Every team is allotted the same number of draft picks and the same amount of salary cap space, there are only 90 spots on the offseason roster and 53 spots on the in-season roster, and it's up to Roseman to figure out how to use them.

The Eagles' roster building was better in 2017 than it had ever been under Roseman. The free-agent additions included wide receiver Alshon Jeffery, quarterback Nick Foles, running back LeGarrette Blount, cornerback Patrick Robinson, wide receiver Torrey Smith, defensive end Chris Long, defensive back Corey Graham, and offensive lineman Chance Warmack. Roseman traded for defensive tackle Tim Jernigan, cornerback Ronald Darby, and running back Jay Ajayi. Kicker Jake Elliott was signed off Cincinnati's practice squad. And that doesn't even factor in the draft, in which the Eagles took a decidedly build-for-the-future approach.

All 53 points scored this postseason were by players who were not on the team last season. There's no better evidence for Roseman's changes.

"Howie has come a long way through the last couple of years, and to be in this position, to help this football team win and succeed on the football field is a credit to him and his staff," coach Doug Pederson said.

There were decisions that kept Roseman staring at his bedroom ceiling. It wasn't easy to trade Jordan Matthews and give away another Day 2 draft pick, but the Eagles saw value in adding Darby. The Eagles could have taken a Day 1 contributor in the second round of the draft, but they were willing to wait for delayed rewards with Sidney Jones. At the trade deadline, there was risk adding Ajayi and disrupting a winning formula.

"Ron Wolf said it a long time ago: If you're hitting 60 percent on your decisions, you're going to be an unbelievable executive in the National Football League," Roseman said. "The hard part is accepting that you're going to have some failure. But your good decisions are going to have to way outweigh your bad ones. And make sure your priorities are intact, and when you make those bad decisions, research the heck out of it and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Roseman has often said that his year away reinforced the need for a top-level franchise quarterback, but it doesn't require accumulating frequent-flyer miles for that realization. The trades to acquire Carson Wentz and open the starting spot for him were Roseman's most important moves, but what brought them to the Super Bowl were the other moves — large and small — that fill the Eagles' transactional calendar.  The past month is evidence that the Eagles' success is about more than Wentz.

The biggest difference with Roseman's roster-building has been the depth on the roster. The addition of executive Joe Douglas helped the Eagles philosophy of trusting proven veterans in depth roles – and also knowing the type of veteran to identify for those spots.

"I think sometimes the sum is greater than the whole of its parts," Roseman said. "You're going to have injuries over the course of the year. … If one injury derails your ability to compete, we didn't want that to happen. We wanted to build up as much depth as possible. I think you've seen in the past, we would maybe go for younger players. But here we brought in some veteran guys to fill in those roles. We wanted to be able to have this next-man-up mentality."

The Eagles also liked the optionality of players on one-year contracts or expiring contracts. Free agency can be expensive in the NFL, and the Eagles have experienced the perils of long-term contracts to players they're unfamiliar with. They've tried to mitigate those risks by identifying players who played in similar systems or whom coaches or executives in the building know, but they also found that shorter commitments provide desired optionality. The Eagles gave in-season contract extensions to Jeffery and Jernigan after a few months with the team.

"If you have the opportunity to know these guys and live with them day in and day out, you feel better about it,' Roseman said.

Douglas conceded that the Eagles have "tough conversations" – those aren't rare in football offices – but he said they came to a plan on "the type of player we're bringing in." He applauded Roseman's creativity and big-picture thinking, and there's been a melding between Roseman's philosophies and the ideas that Douglas brought from Baltimore and Chicago.

"It wasn't just one of us," Douglas said. "It was all of us getting on the same page and working in concert."

Bearing the burden

Ultimately, Roseman is the one held responsible. When moves didn't work in the past, it was Roseman under public fire. And when they lead to a Super Bowl appearance, Roseman earns executive of the year.

"I understand when I'm out in front sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad," Roseman said. "The worst part is I have a family like anyone else and they have to deal with [the criticism]. They know what was said. That's their dad and that's their husband. I think that's harder on them."

Roseman said he can wear blinders, but there's a human element that cannot be overlooked. Eagles president Don Smolenski sat next to Roseman for every game during nearly two decades. He has seen Roseman rise through the organization, the abrupt changing of roles in 2015, and Roseman's return. What stood out to Smolenski was the way Roseman endured.

"It was a tough situation that he went through," Smolenski said. "He put his nose to the ground and he took some time to reflect, and it's nice to sort of see…him be able to enjoy this moment."

The Eagles must win one more game for Roseman to enjoy it as he desires. He looks forward to sitting on a beach after this season and reflecting on what just happened. Because if you don't believe in second acts, just look at Roseman's revenge from exile into executive of the year.

"When you get an opportunity at a really young age and the arrow's pointing up and you don't really get a chance to step back and something like this happens, there's humility in it," Roseman said. "No question about it. But I don't want this to be about me."

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Speaker Profile

Howie Roseman

Executive Vice President of Football Operations, Philadelphia Eagles

Executive Vice President of Football Operations, Philadelphia Eagles Howie Roseman is in his 15th season in Philadelphia and his fifth as the Eagles general manager after being promoted to his current post on January 29, 2010. Roseman spent the previous two seasons as the team's vice president of player personnel. Known as one of the most aggressive general managers in the league, Roseman has earned a reputation for seeking any edge he can find to field the best team. Roseman oversees the college and pro scouting departments, the team's medical, equipment, video and player development staffs, while serving as the steward of the salary cap. He played a vital role assisting Eagles chairman Jeffrey Lurie in the team's search for a new head in 2013, which ultimately brought renowned Oregon coach Chip Kelly east to Philadelphia. "He's one of the brightest young guys in the league," said Eagles chairman Jeffrey Lurie. "I'm very excited about what he brings to the table. He has assembled an excellent team around him. He's meticulous in his evaluations. He has great relationships with players, coaches and agents around the league. " Over the last couple of years, Roseman has configured what many observers have coined a strong scouting staff with a blend of experienced scouts and a young core of talent. "You have to give him a lot of credit for that, because there are a lot of young guys who wouldn't do that," former NFL GM and current Eagles senior football advisor Tom Donahoe said. "They'd feel threatened by it. They would feel a little bit intimidated by it. But Howie's only interested in getting the best group of scouts that he can. He values our opinion. We don't always agree, but that's part of scouting. " In the first year of his new role in 2010, Roseman oversaw a major overhaul of the roster, making it one of the youngest in the NFL. That revamped Eagles squad earned an NFC East division championship. His tenacity, creativity and ability to develop and nurture positive relationships in every part of his job has played a significant role in Roseman's ascent within the Eagles organization. He has an endless tank of energy that defines his personality and fuels his quest for a Super Bowl championship. The youngest GM in the league, Roseman (39 years old) says it has been his dream to be an NFL general manager since he was a kid. "When I was 9 or 10 [years old], people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up and I told them I wanted to be the general manager of an NFL team. "After relentlessly pursuing jobs in the front office of an NFL team, Roseman finally got his foot in the door with the Eagles in 2000 as salary cap/staff counsel, and eventually worked his way up to his dream job. Roseman was elevated to director of football administration in 2003 and to vice president of football administration in 2006. In this role, Roseman worked in the personnel department evaluating players around the NFL and for the draft. He also represented the team to the NFL on contract, salary cap, and player personnel matters. In 2007, Roseman was invited to participate in the NFL-Stanford Program for managers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a program developed by the NFL to promote development of leaders within the league. Roseman is also active in the Philadelphia-area community, contributing to a variety of initiatives involving military and children. In fact, he was named Honorary Commander for the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst for his continued efforts with the military. His charitable endeavors have benefited the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, USA Football, Pop Warner and Cop Wheels. Born in Brooklyn, NY, Roseman earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Florida before earning a JD degree from Fordham Law School. Howie and his wife, Mindy, reside in suburban Philadelphia with their four children.

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Analysis: Eagles have assembled another “Dream Team” but they know talent alone doesn’t win

FILE - Washington Commanders wide receiver Jahan Dotson (1) works out during NFL football training camp, Monday, July 29, 2024, in Ashburn, Va. (AP Photo/Nick Wass, File)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Nick Wass]

On Football analyzes the biggest topics in the NFL from week to week. For more On Football analysis, head here .

Vince Young’s infamous “Dream Team” declaration of the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles came to mind when general manager Howie Roseman added another playmaker to a loaded offense.

How’s Jahan Dotson for a third receiver?

The 2024 Eagles may have more talent than any team in franchise history, including the underachieving 2011 club and the Super Bowl champion 2017 squad.

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts talks with the media following practice at NFL football training camp, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Chris Szagola

Jalen Hurts. Saquon Barkley. A.J. Brown. DeVonta Smith. Dallas Goedert. Now Dotson joins the mix after the Eagles acquired the 2022 first-round pick from Washington for draft picks in a rare deal with a division rival just two weeks before the regular season opens.

Dotson had 49 receptions for 518 yards and four touchdowns last season. He brings speed, explosiveness and could thrive in an offense where other players will demand more attention from defenses.

The 2011 team that Young labeled a “Dream Team” featured quarterback Michael Vick, star running back LeSean McCoy and wide receivers DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin. They finished 8-8 after starting 4-8.

The Super Bowl champions had quarterbacks Carson Wentz and Nick Foles, running backs LeGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi, wideouts Alshon Jeffery, Torrey Smith and Nelson Agholor and tight end Zach Ertz. The team had unique chemistry and several players had career years.

Even the 2004 NFC championship team led by Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens didn’t have this kind of depth.

The Eagles have a quarterback who was MVP runner-up two years ago, possibly the best collection of wide receivers in the NFL and a dynamic running back.

That’s a ton of options for new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.

Of course, talent alone doesn’t win. The Eagles experienced that last season when they started 10-1 and fell apart, losing six of their final seven games, including a lopsided loss at Tampa Bay in the wild-card round.

So, Roseman set out to revamp the roster in the offseason. The general manager known for savvy moves made a big splash on the first day of free agency by signing Barkley away from the New York Giants. The two-time Pro Bowler adds another dimension to Philadelphia’s run game that’s heavily involved Hurts the past three seasons.

Hurts had 2,149 yards rushing and 38 TDs on the ground over the past three years. Barkley ran for 962 yards and six touchdowns and had 41 catches, including four TDs in 14 games last season.

“Saquon is obviously a special player,” Moore said last month. “Just his bursts, quickness, ability to hit the hole. Obviously, he’ll be a guy that you can utilize at all aspects of the field. He can be a space player, which we’re excited about in the passing game. He’s going to be able to attack people in a lot of different ways. That’s the exciting part. It won’t be just a downhill run game. He’ll be able to emphasize and do some other things.”

Brown, a second-team All-Pro in 2023, got a $96 million contract extension in the offseason and Smith, a 2021 first-round pick, received a $75 million deal.

Brown had 106 catches for 1,456 yards and seven TDs last season while Smith caught 81 passes for 1,066 yards and seven TDs. Goedert had 59 receptions for 592 yards and three scores in 14 games.

The offense did suffer one major loss when six-time All-Pro center Jason Kelce retired. Kelce anchored an elite offense line and his leadership will be missed in the locker room.

Still, the Eagles are stacked with star-quality players. Now, they have to go out and perform because nobody wins anything on paper.

“All our players in this room have talent. But the best teams have something else. They have something else, and it’s the culture,” coach Nick Sirianni said earlier in the offseason. “It’s your daily habits of being connected, having accountability, being extremely detailed, being tough, that we’re trying to drop in the bucket over and over again.

“I think sometimes you can lose sight of that, of like, ‘hey, we’re not just going to win games because we’re talented.’ It takes everything. … We know we have the right pieces — Howie has done an unbelievable job of putting this team together and we have the right pieces in here. … But at the end of the day, it’s never just about the most talented — not in football.”

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Eagles GM Howie Roseman is confident in his early-round draft picks from Toledo, Houston Christian

Philadelphia Eagles first round draft pick Quinyon Mitchell holds up his jersey at an NFL football news conference in Philadelphia, Friday, April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia Eagles first round draft pick Quinyon Mitchell speaks at an NFL football news conference in Philadelphia, Friday, April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia Eagles first-ound draft pick Quinyon Mitchell holds up a jersey during a news conference with the NFL football team in Philadelphia, Friday, April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia Eagles first-round draft pick Quinyon Mitchell speaks during a news conference held by the NFL football team Friday, April 26, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

A Philadelphia Eagles fan cheers during the second round of the NFL football draft, Friday, April 26, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Brandon Graham of the Philadelphia Eagles announces a pick for the Philadelphia Eagles during the second night of the NFL football draft, Friday, April 26, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Who needs to draft prospects from the Power Five to build a Super Bowl contender?

The Philadelphia Eagles might soon find out after taking an unconventional approach in the NFL draft. General manager Howie Roseman used a first-round pick on Toledo cornerback Quinyon Mitchell and a third-round selection on Houston Christian linebacker Jalyx Hunt.

Surely those two were on every Eagles fan’s mock draft board.

Only the most diehard college football fans in Philadelphia — of which there are few — and the most dogged Eagles scouts — of which there are many — had much of a report on Mitchell or Hunt. While the picks seemed outside the box, Roseman said it’s not out of the ordinary to find players of that caliber out of more than 400 scouting reports that he receives.

It may have been a surprise to some — it’s just not necessarily the new norm.

“They’re the best players,” Roseman said. “The SEC guys are still playing against great competition. I think these were kind of two extenuating circumstances because of the particular guys. Probably wouldn’t say it’s going to be a trend.”

The Eagles stuck to picks from more familiar football schools with 2023 All-America cornerback Cooper DeJean of Iowa in the second round and Clemson running back Will Shipley in the fourth.

“Once you draft them, it’s what they do in the NFL,” Roseman said. “We bring them in here and we talk about it a lot, we got to develop the player and the person. We’re still talking about a young guy coming to Philadelphia, and I think at this point it’s all what he does from here. Whatever happened pre-draft, none of that matters. Wherever they’re picked, none of that matters.”

EXTENSION TIME

The biggest move of the draft had nothing to do with picks and rounds.

It had to do with an extension — the Eagles and wide receiver A.J. Brown agreed to a three-year extension that included $84 million guaranteed. Brown is set to become the highest-paid receiver in the NFL at $32 million a season.

He had 106 catches for 1,456 yards last season after he had 88 catches for 1,496 yards in 2022 in his first season with the Eagles.

“We try to be proactive to try to keep this team together,” Roseman said. “That starts with (owner) Jeffrey (Lurie) and his support (and) the benefits of trying to keep it together as much as we possibly can. The only way we can possibly do that is by doing deals early. We felt like it was an opportunity to do that here with A.J. Obviously we’ve done a bunch of deals with a bunch of our players, and want to add to that and keep this team together as much as we possibly can.”

DEJEAN COVETED

The Eagles liked DeJean. Like, really liked him.

The Eagles traded picks No. 50, No. 53, and No. 161 to the Washington Commanders in exchange for picks that landed them DeJean.

The 6-foot, 203-pound DeJean, who had seven interceptions in two seasons at Iowa, was considered a first-rounder by the Eagles. It was one reason they were willing to trade the picks to move up for their shot at drafting him.

The Eagles weren’t alone in the assessment of DeJean — he even thought he should have been a first-rounder.

“Obviously there’s a little frustration,” he said. “but I’m excited with where I’m at, being in Philadelphia, being able to play for a great organization.”

Lurie told Roseman it was “rare for us to be picking in the 20s and to get two first-round players.”

“Both those guys were first-round players for us,” Roseman said. “We didn’t have 32 first-round guys, so when you get that opportunity to get two first-round guys, especially picking where we were, we felt like it was an opportunity and it was obviously an area we wanted to address. We felt like we addressed a lot of the areas of our football team through free agency, but that was one area we could address.”

CORNERING THE MARKET

Mitchell might be talented enough to earn a starting spot in the NFL. But can he immediately crack the Eagles’ lineup?

He was widely considered the top cornerback in the draft — he ran a 4.33-second 40-yard dash at the combine. The Eagles have plenty of depth with Darius Slay and James Bradberry returning as starters, at least for now.

“We didn’t feel like we had to a take a corner in the first round but it was the highest-ranked player on our board at a position that we would like to get some younger players here,” Roseman said. “We got some younger players last year and we like those younger players. We wanted to add some competition at the corner position.”

FAMIILAR FACE

The Eagles traded up Saturday to pick at No. 155 and select Clemson linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr.

Yes, the son of that Jeremiah Trotter — an Eagles great, an All-Pro and a four-time Pro Bowl selection.

The younger Trotter wears his dad’s No. 54, plays the same position and celebrates sacks and big tackles with the same signature axe swing.

Trotter was a finalist last year at Clemson for the Dick Butkus Award given to the best linebacker in the country. Trotter was projected to be drafted as high as the second round and some draft analysts believed only his size — he’s 6-foot and 238 pounds — kept him out of the first round.

His father was drafted by the Eagles in the third round of the 1998 draft.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

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Howie Roseman explains why he finally spent big on a running back

Howie Roseman explains why he finally spent big on a running back originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Eagles surprised everyone this offseason when they signed a free agent running back to a top-of-the-market deal.

And at the NFL’s annual league meetings in Orlando, general manager Howie Roseman finally got to explain why he signed Saquon Barkley .

“I think, for us, it’s hard to find special players at any position,” Roseman said. “We think Saquon’s a special player and we think he’s a special person. And when you’re trying to find those guys, they’re hard to find, especially on the open market.

“Then you put into the dynamic about … has the pendulum swung so far at this position? The guy touches the ball 300 times a year, hopefully. There’s not a lot of other skill position players that are touching the ball that many times and have that effect.”

The running back position has been devalued on the open market in the NFL for several years and the Eagles have been on the forefront of that. But if they were looking for a way to add a difference-making offensive skill player, they might have done that by signing Barkley to a three-year, $37.75 million deal.

Instead of paying D’Andre Swift or Tony Pollard around $8 million per season, the Eagles opted to hit the top of the market with Barkley, who is an undoubtedly special player when healthy.

Of course, this deal comes with some inherent risk. Barkley isn’t old but he is 27 and has the fifth most offensive touches in the NFL over the last three seasons.

The Eagles have thought about all that, though.

“Well, he’s not 30, 31. The guy is going to be 27 this season,” Roseman said. “We obviously looked at the workload. I think that that’s a fair point. … But the player trains unbelievably and he’s a freak. We see that in his testing numbers and his body, you see that in his GPS speed. And so we believe in the player and we think that based on the resources and where you can put resources and based on the resources that go at that amount in the league, that this made a lot of sense for us.”

When he’s at his best, Barkley is a tremendous player. There’s a reason he was the No. 2 pick in the 2018 class and his two Pro Bowl seasons have been elite. He’s also a really well-rounded player too. He is the type of back who can bounce but also pummel and run defensive players over. The Eagles will welcome that style in 2024. He can also pass protect and line up anywhere as a receiver.

Maybe it’s unfair to compare this signing to the 49ers’ acquisition of Christian McCaffrey but that move to add an elite back has completely changed the dynamic of the offensive in San Francisco . The Eagles have to be hoping for a similar output from Barkley.

Roseman on Monday pushed back against a narrative that the Eagles haven’t paid big for running backs. His two examples? A contract Brian Westbrook signed before Roseman was even GM and an extension for LeSean McCoy in the 2012 season.

So … the best examples Roseman could come up with were both well over a decade ago and were contracts for homegrown talent. This is a clear departure from the last decade. Roseman obviously thinks Barkley is worth it.

We’ll find out soon enough if he’s right.

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