Five Worthwhile Quotes from Howie Roseman’s Pre-Draft Media Availability

Howie Roseman spoke alongside Nick Sirianni Wednesday. Good media session overshadowed by the Sixers’ big win.

We touched on the goofy Jeff McLane exchange, but pulled five of the more interesting quotes from the availability:

1. How about the New Orleans trade, and flexibility?

Howie:

“I think we were kind of looking at this year, next year, and the amount of picks that we had in this year’s draft and trying to kind of balance it a little bit for a variety of factors. When you look at having first-round picks and the fifth-year option, having that many guys on the fifth-year option. Also, kind of balancing just scouting all the players in this draft and next year’s draft and having more options and more flexibility at all positions. We were kind of getting a head start on looking at next year’s draft too and seeing that it’s strong as well as this year’s draft.

So, we thought it made sense. Obviously, from a New Orleans standpoint, we looked back – there hadn’t been really a team that had moved back that far for a first- round pick, so it made sense for them too. Hopefully, a win-win situation.”

The contract thing makes a lot of sense here. You don’t want to have three first round picks that you want to keep all coming up on their fifth-year options at the same time. Spread it around a bit, gather some more assets, and amass some 2nd and 3rd round picks to give yourself cap flex moving forward.

2. Is it screwed up that Brandon Brown is with the Giants now, despite starting the draft process with you?

Howie:

“I think that that’s part of what happens when you lose good people. When you have good people around you, you try to embrace that and have them as part of every discussion that’s going on, whether it’s about your team and your roster or about free agency or about the draft. But when you talk about February too, there is that part of the process that Coach and his staff haven’t totally dove into yet. The final boards aren’t set. You don’t have this kind of seesaw of where you have obviously the scouting and the tape, but you don’t also have all the information of the character and the intangibles and the testing.

So, to say that everything’s exactly the same as it was when he and [Bears Assistant General Manager] Ian [Cunningham] left; it’s not. Obviously, the coaches are a big part of our process and really the amount of work that coaches do in this is a huge part of complementing the scouts. Just like we talk about that seesaw with the tape and the testing, we also talk about having the coaches balance it with how they see guys in their scheme. We miss Brandon and we miss Ian. We’re also happy for them and their families for the opportunity. At the end of the day, whatever we have to do for this team we’ll continue to do.”

This is a somewhat underrated topic, but the Eagles lost their director of player personnel, Brown, to the Giants. He’s now their assistant GM. So it’s screwed up when you think about it, because he’s somewhat familiar with their draft strategy and knows what they want in personnel, which is leverage for the Giants, theoretically. There are thoughts that you can change the calendar for these types of hires in order to prevent secrets from being lost to the teams hiring your player personnel executives.

3. What did you learn from drafting first round receivers two years in a row?

Howie:

“Yeah, I think you’re constantly evaluating the things that you do wrong, and you also want to learn from the things you did right and lessons that you have from that. We discussed that a lot about the scenarios where we’ve done good things and how obviously this is a hard process. You’re going to mess things up, but what can you learn from those picks that didn’t work out?

I would say with [WR] Jalen [Reagor], obviously I know he gets a lot of attention in this city and I know he’s working his butt off, and when you look back — we were having this conversation this morning with our strength and conditioning staff — that was a hard year for some guys because you had COVID, you didn’t have an off-season program, and so sometimes the book isn’t necessarily written on all those guys.”

Howie brought up Reagor unprompted. Read into that what you will.

4. How about Devin Lloyd, Nakobe Dean, and this linebacker class?

Howie:

“There are different guys at that position, and when you talk about off-ball linebackers, their value in the passing game is important. There are different values in the passing game. Obviously pressuring the quarterback, being able to blitz and create pressure is an important part of that too, but being able to match mirror routes, being able to make plays in the passing game I think is an important part of that too. Being instinctive. So, you’re talking about really good players that you just mentioned, obviously, and I don’t know what the attention is going on in the media, but I know this is a good linebacking class and I think there will be a lot of good players that come out.”

I’d take Lloyd in a heartbeat. Guy is a killer. Dean is also fantastic but I prefer Lloyd.

5. How do you test these guys psychologically and get to know the person?

Howie:

“We try to dig deep into the background and the character, and really the first credit to that goes to our scouts, all of the guys that are on the road all year. They do a tremendous job of being experts in their school and in their players. They’re the ones who really alert us to some guys that we may need to spend extra time with. Then all you guys know [Eagles vice president of team security/chief security officer] Dom [DiSandro], and there’s nobody better in the National Football League than Dom DiSandro about getting to the bottom of guys and figuring out guys and talking to guys and understanding who are risks and who are fits for this team. He knows our team backwards and forwards. He knows the players that fit for our culture, for our team, and our city. So very fortunate to have those two pieces.

Then we have experts who do talk to the guys that we have some questions on and try to get to the bottom of it. Coach and I can think we’re good at interviewing players, but at the end of the day, we didn’t go to school for it. We don’t have that area of expertise.

So, we try to do that and really put up just like we do a player evaluation, we try to do a character evaluation on all these guys. Now, some of them are easy, right? Some of them are really easy. It’s not too hard to figure out a three-time captain in the SEC. [WR] DeVonta [Smith] didn’t take long to figure out. [OL] Landon [Dickerson] didn’t take long to figure out.

But some of these guys, they’re complicated. So, we spend a lot of time talking about them and getting as much background and talking to as many experts as we can to try to figure out the person as much as the player.”

Dom DiSandro is an interesting name. He’s the big guy who is always around. He knows just as much as anybody about all of the Eagles players and who they really are. Never thought about him being part of the personnel evaluation process before.

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