clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Howie Roseman thinks some people don’t respect the legitimacy of the Eagles’ Super Bowl run, which fuels him to win another

Howie isn’t messing around.

Super Bowl LII - Philadelphia Eagles v New England Patriots Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Howie Roseman is not unlike you, Philadelphia Eagles fans.

One Super Bowl title is very nice, for sure, but it’s just not enough. And so Roseman is obsessed with winning another Super Bowl title.

The Philadelphia Eagles executive vice president of football operations indicated as much in an entertaining interview with the SportsRadio 94WIP Morning Show last week.

ANGELO CATALDI: How is your life different after winning the Super Bowl?

ROSEMAN: I used to tell people, you know, I’d tell friends and family if we ever won the Super Bowl in Philly, like, you wouldn’t find me for two weeks. I’d be on a bender, I’d be on a vacation. It would just be unbelievable.

And so we come back [to Philadelphia on] Monday night, and I wake up Tuesday morning, and I have this fire. And I drive here [to the NovaCare Complex] and I call Joe Douglas and I go ‘We are six weeks behind every other team. We’ve got 14 free agents. We’re going to get our assed kicked if we don’t get to work right now.’

And I get off the phone and I’m going ‘What have I become? What’s going on here?’

But the reality of it is … we have this fire, and it’s funny because I was around a couple of our players the other day and they feel the same way …

I really believe people think we just had a nice run. ‘Eh, they just had a nice run, they got hot at the right time.’ And Coach [Doug Pederson] believes that. Jeffrey [Lurie] believes that. So the fire within all of us, it’s unbelievable that this city has a Lombardi Trophy, but getting the next one is really on the forefront. And how are we going to do that?

And it’s hard. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s not like we’re just going to roll the ball out and go play and just go kick everyone’s butt.

It’s just, to change the whole dynamic of this, and going forward, that, to me, would be even more unbelievable than where we are right now.

[...]

I’m telling you, I want to promise the fans that we are not just sitting here and trying to pat ourselves on the back. We are trying to do as much as possible to continue to have these great moments for our fans and our city. And we’ve got determination, man. Same determination from the first one. Trying to get a second one.

You’ve really got to appreciate that sentiment. This team still feels like they’re being disrespected despite winning a title. They still have something to prove.

Talk is cheap, but Roseman’s words have been backed up by his actions. The Eagles haven’t taken their foot off the gas pedal. They traded for Michael Bennett, they extended Nigel Bradham, they added Mike Wallace, they signed Haloti Ngata, they re-signed Darren Sproles, and so on. The Eagles are clearly gearing up for another run.

As Roseman noted, repeating won’t be easy. It hasn’t been done since the New England Patriots did it in 2005.

But the Eagles aren’t just any other team. They’re a group that won without a number of key players last season. They’ll be getting Carson Wentz, Jason Peters, Jordan Hicks, Chris Maragos, and Sproles back this year. They’ll be hungry.

When you can say that the Eagles arguably have the best head coach, best quarterback, and best general manager equivalent in the league, you can also say it’s easy to feel good about their chances.


You should really check out the entire Roseman interview because the Morning Show touched on a number of topics with him, such as being on the Goldbergs, Jason Kelce’s parade speech, the Eagles’ cohabitation matrix, the greatness of Carson Wentz, Nick Foles getting a reworked contract, and more.

Here are a few specific things that I felt the need to highlight. Starting with Roseman relishing in how the Eagles bossed the Cowboys on Day 2 of the 2018 NFL Draft.

CATALDI: Did you see your trade up ahead of Cowboys as a way to prevent them from drafting a player they potentially wanted in Dallas Goedert?

ROSEMAN: When we were at 32, and we need to get more picks, and we need to get more high picks anyway we can, so we were at 32, there was a small group of guys that we were looking at that we would’ve taken at 32, and he was there. And they started coming off the board. And we were really surprised that he was still available. And so, we decided that we have to just go up and get him. Make sure that, because we felt he could go at any pick really when the draft started on Friday night. We really weren’t expecting him to be there even within shooting range for us. I think, for us, we saw that any team could take him at that time …

Was [trading ahead of the Cowboys] fun? Obviously that was fun. I mean, that was unbelievable, you know, I’m not going to lie. That was fun.

But this guy, this guy’s a freak. And you think about with Coach, with 12 personnel, with Zach Ertz, and Dallas, and I’ll tell you what, what’ve got some young tight ends that are looking good right now, too. It’s just a different look for our offense that we had last year. That’s what’s fun, working with Coach. He’s constantly looking for ways to get guys open and to have matchups and so we have the receivers and tight ends and running backs, we’ve got our offensive line back. We were talking about this yesterday, just the team that was on the field in the Super Bowl, trying to be better than that team, and it’s exciting stuff. With our depth chart, obviously, it’s all gotta gel, and we gotta make sure everybody’s healthy.

And how I wasn’t the only one to originally doubt Akers’ ability to properly troll the Cowboys.

So, they told me, and I didn’t find out until the day of, that Akers was announcing our pick in the second round. So after we trade out [of the first round], I’m coming in on Friday morning, and I called David, and I’m like giving him some bullet points. Like, I think I know what I’m doing, right? I’m like, ‘Dave, man, we need fire, man. We need passion. We’re drafting a guy in Dallas.’ And he’s like, ‘I got it, Howie. I got it.’ And I’m kind of going, he’s just yes-ing me, like most people do, so I’m used to it.

And he comes out with a rant that’s legendary. Legendary! I call him the next day and I just apologize. I go, ‘I’m sorry, man. I didn’t even think of some of the lines that you were coming up with.’ I mean, it was so beautiful, so unbelievable, we were all going crazy. And he goes, ‘Well, I feel bad, I was yelling.’ I go ‘The yelling was the good part about it! I mean, you’re in Dallas and you’re yelling at them, bro! If you think you were a hero for being a kicker, this is forever!’

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for the Bleeding Green Nation Daily Roundup newsletter!

A daily roundup of all your Philadelphia Eagles news from Bleeding Green Nation