Eagles announced Tuesday that Tom Gamble will join the Eagles as VP of Player Personnel.

During the Philadelphia Eagles’ inquiry for a new head coach, I wrote an article on how I would approach fixing the Eagles. Most notoriously,  I stated the Eagles will not win a Super Bowl with Howie Roseman as the General Manager. Well, on Tuesday, February 13, a day before Valentine’s Day, the Eagles inaugurated a formidable couple. The team announced they hired Tom Gamble as their Vice President of Player Personnel. Tom Gamble is well respected around the National Football League, and is admired for his eye for talent. Gamble is much credited for San Francisco’s recent success in 2011 and 2012. The Eagles have been searching to replace Ryan Grigson, who previously served under the same title with the Eagles. Tom Gamble is their man – and has been since Grigson left the team last year.

Howie Roseman certainly is facile with the contractual side of building a football team. He’s the “lawyer” GM in the NFL. Roseman is popularly scolded because of his lack of a football background. With the hiring of Gamble, the Eagles have their football man. Gamble will enter his 25th year in pro football this year. He has previously worked as a personnel scout for the collegiate level and for the pros, while also working in the contractual side of the league.

After seeing the 49ers emerge in 2011, I quickly realized the talent on their team. It became even more evident in 2012. While Jim Harbaugh and his coaching staff do a brilliantly unparalleled job of maximizing these players’ talents, Tom Gamble deserves credit for acquiring them.

Roseman can be a Super Bowl winning General Manager – and be it with the Eagles. However, he must not oversee Tom Gamble in talent evaluation. I trust Gamble’s eye for talent more than any Eagles’ coach or executive all-time. This is a majestic move for the Eagles. Gamble can help re-build this team terrifically, and with Chip Kelly’s sensational prospering mind, this nest is becoming equipped for the Eagles.

Dec 2, 2012; Arlington, TX, USA; Philadelphia Eagles running back Dion Lewis (28) runs with the ball during the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Cowboys Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

First and foremost I think this position remains largely unchanged in terms of personnel.  Other than the addition of Damaris Johnson and Desean Jackson for a few touches a game (which I wrote about yesterday) I don’t see the faces at this spot changing all that much.

However, the potential I do see for change here is going to surprise a lot of people, and honestly is a bit of a projection on my part.

Anyways, LeSean “Baby Mama Drama” McCoy is still one of the top 5 backs in the league.  His lateral movement ability and shifty quickness make him darn near impossible for the first guy to bring down about 85-90% of the time.

But he was and is a back that fit really well into what the Eagles wanted to do under Andy Reid and may be one of those fan favorite players to not fit so seamlessly into a Chip Kelly offense.

The Eagles wanted to spread the field and run the ball from passing formations, attacking the defense by stretching them out and getting the ball to McCoy in space, whereas Chip enjoys the line up and beat the guy across from you even though he probably knows what you’re about to do, kind of mentality.

That being said, I don’t think McCoy is going anywhere anytime soon, so put the pitchforks down and douse the torches.  He’ll find a home, and a potentially pretty happy one at that, in Chip Kelly’s offense this year.  What might happen however is that you see Bryce Brown or Dion Lewis (And the DJ’s.  They surely have taken lessons.) getting increased touches.

Now, right off the bat I have to say, obvious though it may be, that Brown’s role in all of this hinges on his learning how to hold onto the football, because if there’s one thing that Chip Kelly or really any coach at any level of any sport hates, its turnovers.

So, provided Bryce “Baby Bo” Brown can improve his handle on the ball, and/or Dion Lewis can hold up to more of a workload, (Plus, ya know, Damaris and Desean, did I mention them?) I think what you’ll start to see is the ball and the touches being spread out a lot more.

Which some may see as Lesean McCoy being phased out of the offense a bit.  Which may not sit so well with him.  Which could upset him and his entourage which could cause some friction in the locker room, which might make him…see where I’m going with this?

Now even though I don’t think that will be the correct read on the situation, McCoy, being young and prideful, may very well take it as such, starting a long chain of events, culminating in his possibly leaving the team in some way a couple seasons from now.

Ok, I know, I know.  Quite the projection, right?  But if you think about it for a second, it makes a lot of sense.  And the return the Birds could get in trade on a situation like this stands to be mighty enticing, especially for a team in transition that has a lot of holes on the defensive side of the ball.  Just sayin.

Which is all really just a very long drawn out way of positing basically that McCoy is going to lose some touches to some other people with the end result of that possibly being misinterpreted by McCoy and/or the media with potentially negative results.

But the real bottom-line for me is I don’t see the Eagles addressing this position in any way really this offseason.  Even fullback seems pretty set with a competition of Emil Igwenagu and Stanley Havili battling it out for a lone roster spot.

Both are decent to good blockers with plus athleticism so I think Chip will be happy going into the season with the winner of that fight as his starter.

Most of the changes we’ll see are simply going to be in terms of who gets how many touches.

Which brings me to Dion Lewis.  I think Dion especially gets a lot more touches.

I really never understood why Lewis seemed to jump to the back of the pack in Training Camp this year.  I guess something either happened (Yes, there was this.  But come on.  Who hasn’t been drunk outside of a hotel before?) to get him into the doghouse or Reid and Marty simply thought that Bryce Brown and Chris Polk were better and/or needed the reps more than Lewis.

Whatever it was, I don’t think it continues with the new regime.  I think Chris Polk learns how to play fullback or he get’s gone.  I think Bryce, immense talent though he may be, is going to continue having problems holding onto the football.  And I think Lewis has looked pretty darn good in the few instances where he’s gotten the ball in a game situation.

He’s small so he’s hard to track behind the line, and he’s got really good lower body strength, so he can break some open field tackles.  He also seems like a pretty good receiver out of the backfield so I think Chip finds plenty of ways to get him on the field and get him the ball.

But like I said, those touches don’t come without a correlating loss of touches and I think McCoy get’s less while some combination of Dion Lewis, Damaris Johnson and Desean get more, with Brown’s contribution hinging on his ball security.

All right, that’s it for now.  Offensive line is next!

Football is such a fantastic and amazing sport – it epitomizes life. Unlike other sports, to be successful in football one must overcome adversity. More than that, a football field is the ultimate battle field. The 100-by-52.5 yard rectangular, grass-covered surface deciphers which men are courageous and which are not.

Football at the professional level is even more complicated. An organization must be run in a specific manner to be consistently successful. The two organizations which epitomize this quality most are the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Giants. It is no coincidence that these organizations have won 10 Super Bowls between them, more impressively four of the last seven. The organization must work in unison, with uniform beliefs of how to improve the team. A franchise must have a caring owner that is interested in winning championships, and who isn’t satisfied with just the money side of owning an NFL team. The owner should have an elaborate understanding of football as well. The franchise must also have a general manager, or an individual(s) acting as such, who understands the contractual side of the game, but who also has a great eye for talent. The franchise must also have an excellent coach who also knows how to build a team, how to coach, how to handle the different personalities on the roster, and maybe most importantly how to prepare for each week’s game. The franchise’s players must also be ‘character guys’. Players who are positive, confident, focused, and dedicated to the team make everyone’s job in the organization much easier.

As for the Eagles…

Jeffrey Lurie is a smart businessmen. His franchise is always making an astounding profit regardless of the team’s production on the field. Lurie has hired two head coaches since buying the Eagles in 1994: Ray Rhodes and Andy Reid. Lurie has the football intelligence to be a Super Bowl-winning owner; however, he must make changes beneath him in the Eagles’ front office.

It all starts with Howie Roseman. Start a petition now, do whatever, but make one thing absolutely crystal clear, the Eagles WILL NOT and CANNOT win a Super Bowl with Howie Roseman as general manager. He has whiffed in the draft and free agency. Roseman drafted too many busts in a time where the Eagles were on a peak, but needed young help defensively. The jury is out on Brandon Graham, who is finally starting to resurrect his career after a severe knee injury in 2010. Nate Allen was benched this season, after two very inadequate seasons, for special teamer Colt Anderson. Daniel Te’o-Nesheim was axed after one abysmal season with the team. The scanty draft picks continued in 2011, starting with first round pick Danny Watkins. Watkins sat on the bench for the first half of his rookie season for free agent off the street Kyle Devan. This season, Watkins is still struggling and even after returning to the practice field after an ankle injury that has reportedly bugged Watkins throughout his football career, Watkins was benched for rookie Dennis Kelly and eventually another street free agent Jake Scott. The busts continued in 2011 with second round pick Jaiquawn Jarrett who barely licked the field his rookie season. Jarrett’s second season was a regression much like Watkins’ and it eventually lead to his release a few games into the season. Third rounder Curtis Marsh has been mostly absent from the field, but is still on the roster after two seasons.

Free agency is where Howie Roseman really digs his own grave. Consistently good football organizations, like the Steelers and Giants, know which player

s to sign and how much to spend on those players in free agency. The Steelers hold a belief that no player, especially no free agent, is worth a lucrative contract. They believe a more motivated player can play his position just as well for a lot less money, preferably a player drafted by them. Roseman broke the bank, in one off-season alone, by signing Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin, Cullen Jenkins, Steve Smith, Ronnie Brown, and Vince Young to contracts that were worth more than their play. The most important thing to know as a general manager in the NFL is that teams improve more on the practice field than they can by signing free agents in the off-season. I do not know any general managers that I believe can do the job at a championship level, but looking for a pupil of the Steelers’ GM Kevin Colbert or Giants’  GM Jerry Reese may be a good idea. From the Steelers’ front office, I am intrigued by Ron Hughes and Brandon Hunt, two personnel scouts.

To conclude, a few head coaches I would like to see lead the Eagles in 2013 include… Ben McAdoo (current Packers QB coach), Chip Kelly (current Oregon head coach), Bill Cowher (former Steelers head coach, current CBS analyst), and Bruce Arians (current Colts interim head coach and offensive coordinator).

McAdoo (pictured) is the coach I would be most interested in if I were Jeffrey Lurie. He is a western Pennsylvania football prodigy (the birth place of football), so that intrigues me since I also reside from western PA. He has been around a great offensive mind, ie Mike McCarthy. McAdoo has helped shape Rodgers into the league’s best quarterback, and the top rated passer of back-to-back seasons. McAdoo is apparently a hot commodity around league gossip for a head coaching gig in 2013. Coincidentally, McAdoo would transition from Green Bay quarterback coach to Philadelphia head coach… just like current Eagles’ head coach Andy Reid.