Why Eagles GM Howie Roseman hates the word 'rebuilding'

Why Howie Roseman hates the word 'rebuilding' originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Leave it to Jason Kelce to get Howie Roseman to open up about roster building in a way he never really has before.

Roseman sat down with the future Hall of Fame center for a fascinating 54-minute interview on the Kelce Brothers’ New Heights podcast, and even though that chat took place at the Combine in Indianapolis in February, it appears on the latest edition of the podcast, which was released on Thursday.

Kelce did something that’s rare – he got Roseman to relax and open up about himself, his career and most importantly his process when it comes to building a football team.

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Roseman’s explanation of how the Eagles have managed to avoid long stretches of losing was fascinating.

“The word rebuild, it kind of rubs me the wrong way,” he said. “We’re about competing. How do you say that to your players (we’re on a) three-year plan? You can’t build a culture like that because how do you turn it back on? How do you tell these great players, it’s going to take us two to three years and then say now we’re ready.”

The Eagles have only had three losing seasons in Roseman’s 12 years as a general manager – they were 4-12 in 2012, 7-9 in 2016 and 4-11-1 in 2020. Each season was either a coach’s first or last season with the Eagles.

In each case, they made the playoffs the next year, and the last two times they were in the Super Bowl within two seasons.

The Eagles were also 7-9 in 2015, but that was Chip Kelly’s year as GM and his final year as head coach before Roseman re-gained his position.

“For me, especially in our market, there is no rebuilding,” Roseman said. “As quickly as we can to be a championship team, that’s the goal. And it was almost a challenge to me. When I came back in ’16 (after a year in exile) and really, the team was in a different place in ’15. We had so many independent contractors on the ’16 team from afar – because I wasn’t as tied in that year. (I was in the) closet?

“And so when I came back, you start looking at those guys, and I’m like, ‘Man, we’ve got a lot of guys who aren’t Eagles and don’t really fit who we are and what we’re looking for, and we were fortunate to turn it around in two years.

“And I remember after ’20 someone saying, like, this is going to be three or four years, and I’m going, ‘I don’t have that time. We don’t have that time.’ We’re trying to win as quickly as possible. I remember telling my staff, ‘Here’s the challenge, let’s do it quicker than we did it in ’16 to ’17 and how can we do it? We have a bunch of these assets that we can use to help us get a bunch of players.”

That's when Roseman got to work undoing Kelly's damage, unloading players like Byron Maxwell, DeMarco Murray and Kiko Alonso while stockpiling the draft picks that ultimately helped the Eagles win a Super Bowl.

Since Jeff Lurie restored Roseman to general manager after the 2015 season, the Eagles are one of only four teams to reach more than one Super Bowl – and the only one to do it with different coaches. And the Chiefs are the only team to reach the postseason more than the Eagles over those last seven years. The Bills and Seahawks have also gone five times since 2016.

The Eagles just don’t have losing seasons. Just five since 2000. Only the Patriots (three) and Steelers (one) have had fewer.

That’s not all Howie – he became GM (the first time) in 2010. But Mickey Loomis of the Saints is the only GM who’s been on the job longer than Roseman, although John Schneider was hired as Seahawks GM 11 days before the Eagles hired Roseman.

The reality is that the Eagles’ sustained success is probably the handiwork of Roseman more than anyone else with the possible exception of Jeff Lurie.

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“I feel like there’s a difference between rebuilding and retooling,” Roseman said. “And the best thing - that’s painful at the time - is when you have terrible years … when you bottom out like that, it actually allows you to flip it quicker. Because if you just have a year when you win six, seven, eight games and you’re picking in the middle of the draft, it’s hard to really change your team.

“We had the fourth pick in the 2013 draft, and we got Lane (Johnson) and it changed our team and then we come back in the second round and we got Zach (Ertz) and changed our team because you’re not just picking at the top of the first round, you’re picking at the top of every round.

“And then the same thing happened when we had the terrible year in 2020. We picked sixth, and that allows us to trade back to 13th and get an extra first-round pick."

It's no coincidence that the Eagles' two Super Bowl appearances came within two years (and a coaching change) of two of the worst seasons in franchise history.

We saw the same dynamic from 1998 to 2000, when the Eagles went from 3-13 under Ray Rhodes to 11-5 under Andy Reid.

“I kind of try to zig a little bit when people are zagging and just try to stay ahead of it," Roseman said. "The league’s set up based on cap and picks and they really want everyone to be 9-8 or 8-9 and just have that competition, and so I think if you want to really be great you almost have to take chances that maybe don’t work out – 2012 and 2020 – where it kind of falls and you go, 'Oh, bleep, that was really bad.'

"But at least if that happens and you’re here, you get a chance to reset it a little bit."