The Internal Decay of the Philadelphia Eagles

in a league with as little certainty from day to day as the nfl in order to have prolonged success your team needs stability like an atom if the nucleus of an organization is not aligned and on the same page things can become radioactive and if you don't choose your next steps very carefully you can be looking at a full-on meltdown but avoiding catastrophe is sometimes easier said than done especially considering that the nfl is home to a lot of big egos and when things sour front office is devolving into a power struggle is often how the dominoes fall a textbook case of this can be seen in the current situation the philadelphia eagles have ended up in an example that is certainly not the worst fallout team has ever seen but in my opinion is one of the most fascinating just over three years ago at the time of making this the eagles were super bowl champions their first ring in franchise history one without the help of their ascendant second year quarterback who had led the mvp conversation before a season-ending injury not to mention he was paired with a second year head coach that had steered a battered roster through all odds to achieve the ultimate goal if you were an eagles fan you were psyched for what was yet to come but jump to three seasons later and both of these pillars of the future are gone and there's a hell of a lot to unpack as to why that is so much so that i'm actually going to be dedicating two separate videos to what happened to the eagles this one to break down the internal feuding that turned doug peterson's tenure sour as the team's head coach and another focusing entirely on the fall of carson wentz so make sure you're subscribed because that is going to be an interesting one to say the least but before we discuss the fallout in philadelphia i'd like to thank today's sponsor over at hellofresh for helping me to make this video happen they're the number one meal kit delivery service and deserve every bit of the reputation they've got 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to the task at hand [Music] the philadelphia eagles are a franchise with a mostly flightless history long living in the shadow of their much more decorated division rivals when news broke that jeffrey lurie had purchased the birds in 1994 things were bleak but following some mixed results early on lurie would hit the nail on the head in bringing in head coach andy reed in 1999 alongside quarterback donovan mcnabb the pair would win four straight nfc east titles from 2001 to 2004 culminating in a loss to the patriots in super bowl 39 the andy reed era spanned over a decade and included a lot of winning in spite of the fact that they were never able to make it over the mountain but by the 2012 season a 4-12 record and the stink of the failed 2011 dream team experiment had philly fans booing their own team even more than usual leading to the firing of reed and shift to placing the franchise in the hands of howie roseman the youngest gm in league history at the time roseman joined with the team as an intern in 1998 working his way up the ranks during the andy reed era and gaining the steadfast trust of jeffrey lurie along the way when he finally became general manager in 2010 hits he made early on in the draft and key acquisitions made over the years that followed have solidified his standing as laurie's right-hand man for better or worse but that wasn't always the case to understand where roseman's position in the front office stands today you need to understand how the power dynamics up top have evolved as the 2010s progressed lurie had gambled on an inexperienced but promising young name in andy reid back in 99 and with roseman joining him in the search for their next coach following reid's departure they chose yet another risky and aggressive hire bringing in chip kelly out of oregon kelly's offensive philosophy centered around blazing tempo and catching the defense out of position to rip off chunk plays and at first it looked like it was going to be the next big thing in the nfl but despite two consecutive 10-win seasons at the end of 2014 it was becoming clear the novelty of kelly's system was starting to wear thin and nfl defenses were catching on as a result of those question marks an ugly tug of war ensued in the front office over who deserved the most influence between kelly and roseman with moves made by lurie over the course of days seemingly swinging the pendulum back and forth eventually though lurie decided to go all in on kelly granting him the duties of general manager and giving him complete control over personnel decisions a set of responsibilities that would ultimately be the shovel he'd use to dig his own grave kelly wasted no time gutting the roster roseman had helped build and excised key players like lashawn mccoy and nick foles in favor of players like demarco murray and sam bradford just to name a couple of replacements but trust me there were a lot of questionable moves across the board very few if any of these were improvements and chip kelly's dictatorship would soon crumble after a 6-9 start in 2015 led to his firing the unceremonious exit immediately created a vacuum of power that swung right back to roseman in philadelphia and after essentially being demoted howie made sure he wasn't about to lose control again anytime soon picking up the pieces of the kelly era proved to be difficult at first as the team's favorites for the head coaching vacancy slipped through the cracks but considering the names at the top of their short list where ben mcadoo and adam gase having to fall back on the inexperienced doug peterson might be the best thing to ever happen to philadelphia peterson was andy reid's offensive coordinator in kansas city and was viewed as a lackluster hire that seemed to admit the eagles were wrong to part ways with big red but lurie's vision moving forward centered around getting a leader that had real pull in the locker room while allowing his wonderboy gm to pull the strings in managing the roster in the 2016 draft philly would trade significant capital to move up to number two overall and select carson wentz a prototypical passer out of the fcs with elite athleticism and traits the season that followed was a mixed bag as most clean slate resets are going 7-9 but finding clear reasons to believe philly was poised to become a real contender though doug peterson was valuable in creating a strong locker room he wasn't trusted with the reins of the team from the very start roseman still held the cards in terms of most personnel decisions and in the following season he would choose to push his chips into the center of the table front loading the roster to capitalize on wence's favorable contract it would pay off and in spite of wence going down with a season-ending acl tear in week 14 the homecoming of nick bdn fulls and an innovative coaching staff led the team all the way to the promised land it was an underdog run for the ages going from being the first number one seed in the playoffs to be favored to lose in their opening round to calling one of the gutsiest plays in super bowl history and avenging the eagles loss to the patriots in the same matchup they'd had so many years earlier against all odds the battered 2017 eagles were super bowl champs at last but while eagles fans prepared for a dynasty in the making the confidence that that franchise's first ring would grant to those in charge would lay the groundwork for a swift collapse the 2018 and 2019 seasons while still playoff campaigns saw a regression from the eagle's offense alongside so many injury woes that questions of competency were raised against philly's training staff among what was actually assembled blame went around between peterson's scheme stagnating wence feuding with his coaches and roseman failing to bring in talent to supplement the team's weakest position groups though two straight playoff appearances had shown them to still be able to overcome adversity in spite of that success with a poor hand dealt to him doug peterson was still on a short leash with howie and lurie and lockstep up above and before long the pairs meddling into team affairs would become an issue front and center for the eagles going into 2020 despite lurie's previous reputation of being hands off and letting football guys make football decisions it became clear that his collaborative approach he touted meant that he wanted to have a much larger say in football matters the most notable instance of this took place when in january 2020 doug peterson gave a press conference in which he publicly endorsed his offensive coordinator and wide receivers coaches mike grow and carson walsh saying he wanted them back with the team however just a day later a decision from up over his head came down and he had to walk back those comments and fire the two coaches just 24 hours after praising them grow had long been a target for the offense's regression following the departure of frank reich and john d filippo but the air of disrespect from this move was pretty significant despite peterson winning a super bowl just two seasons prior he was now slated to work with new assistants in rich scangrillo and marty morningweg that had an entirely different offensive philosophy from the one key wanted to move forward with the following year in 2020 would prove to be the final male in the coffin for peterson who in a pandemic and injury-stricken season became estranged from his quarterback as carson wentz regressed to becoming one of the worst passers in the entire nfl the eagles went 4 11 and 1 and after again expressing a desire to have more say in his own staff and personnel peterson's plan for the future of the team was deemed incompatible with lurie and rosemans making him the first head coach since 1973 to be fired within three seasons of a super bowl victory but it didn't just come out of nowhere there had been rumblings throughout the season that peterson no longer cared if he was fired and seemed to be acting out the bidding of higher ups when he was given the green light to bench wentz in november as well as in the final game of the season when he benched jalen hurts with seconds left to play in what became a shameless display of tanking that narrative was only further bolstered when after he was fired it was reported that peterson had grown entirely sick of being told what to do the entire ordeal has become a by-the-book example of how not to treat a super bowl winning head coach and even after all the puppeteering and eventual sacrificing of peterson's job it still wouldn't be enough to retain carson wentz and the massive extension he signed before the 2019 season while it had been reported that carson wentz's relationship with doug peterson was fractured beyond repair it appears it was that way with the entire eagles organization as well forcing the team to accrue a cap hit of 33.8 million dollars to trade him for a third round pick and conditional 2022 second round pick to the colts so now only two of the four figures central in the rise and fall of the eagles remain with jeffrey lurie making the decision to go scorched earth on his super bowl winning coach and the quarterback that led them there instead for the third time in 11 seasons choosing to retain howie roseman as his forever partner in crime so in seeing this unwavering level of faith in his general manager you would think that roseman must have one of the most incontrovertible track records in the league when it comes to front office moves and draft selections but while he still certainly has a positive reputation stemming from 2017 it is not without its warts for starters the only pro bowler roseman has selected in the last six drafts is no longer on the team because his name is carson wentz the fact that the past six drafts have failed to net a great or elite player while roseman has made a habit of selecting projects that see no significant playing time in their early years is not a positive trend and that's without even mentioning the most egregious misses since the chip kelly disaster reaffirmed roseman's security as gm he has been given room to blunder multiple times including the carson wentz and alshon jeffrey mega deals that have thrust philadelphia into the worst cap situations in all of football but there is one thing roseman has mastered better than any contract negotiation or trade he's leveraged over the years and that is the ability to keep jeffrey lurie under his spell the idea of a collaborative approach between all parties lurie takes to making decisions up and down the organization provides a haze over where the blame lies for any particular mistake for instance when the team fell apart in 2020 who deserved to shoulder the blame was it peterson wence jim schwartz roseman well yes but the lack of transparency on who called what shots allows for lurie to retrofit the majority of that blame onto whatever party is easiest and through andy reid chip kelly and doug peterson's tenures howie roseman has never faced that scrutiny an abysmal draft record as of late well you see how he had the right players they just got picked before we could take them oh but when carson went struggles to succeed in part due to the roster being old overpaid and bereft of talent the blame is shouldered on doug peterson and the coaching staff who were also chosen by lurie and roseman despite the fact that this franchise won a super bowl just a handful of seasons ago considering the house is now empty and the cupboards are bare i think it's time for jeffrey lurie to take a long hard look in the mirror at what the lombardi trophy did to not just the culture of his organization but how it inflated the ego of howie roseman and himself it's no surprise that the coaching vacancy in philadelphia was one of the least palatable jobs to prospective candidates considering that not even a super bowl win is enough to get your voice consistently heard in what is again a collaborative system blurry's eagles found success when his hands were off the steering wheel but since their super bowl win in february 2018 that has year by year ceased to be the case meddling in team affairs and allowing his trust in his personal friend to cloud his judgment now handing the reins back to roseman to do this dance all over again in hopes that new head coach nick siriani will fall in line with that philosophy it's a problem the eagles are going to stare down for as long as lurie keeps his roseman colored glasses on because it's easy to have egos get along when everything is humming but when hits the fan and there's disagreements about how you want to move forward the eagles have shown time and time again now that the way power and blame is structured in their front office lacks the most important component stability [Music] [Music] do you

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 230,907

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Id: SUFzPB3Sk5k

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021