It may be time for the Philadelphia Eagles to put Howie under the microscope.
If you’re a ‘Birds’ fan, there are plenty of reasons to get excited about your football team. You might want to steer clear of asking Howie what those reasons are though. Forget the fact that it’s hard to determine if you should trust him and his decision-making process. It’s hard to gauge if you can even trust what he says.
He says the Eagles aren’t trying to trade Alshon Jeffery, but if that’s the case, where do all of these reports keep coming from? He says the Eagles are going to get younger and less-expensive, yet he keeps reacquiring Jason Peters, Vinny Curry, and every other old guy that no one seems to want except for this Eagles team.
Sure, there’s the possibility that changes here real soon. The ‘Birds’ opened ‘Washington Week’ with eight rookies on the 53-man roster. If this team is to establish long-term dominance, they must draft better. They have to develop talent better, and they have to stop signing so many free agents because the guys they draft aren’t working out. The salary cap will always be a mess if that continues. They may want to rethink that ‘quarterback factory’ thing. Yes, Jalen Hurts is talented, but Philly had other needs and didn’t need to spend a seco0nd-round pick on him.
The long and the short of things with Howie Roseman is this. If you’re going to praise him for that Eagles Super Bowl win, you also have to admonish him for that 2017 draft class and that ‘Dream Team’ debacle. Yes, that was him too.
General managers are graded based on how they evaluate and draft talent. They’re graded on how they manage the salary cap. Howie hasn’t done either job with a ton of long-term success. That’s something to pay attention to as we navigate through the 2020 season.