PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Eagles Podcast | What does Howie Roseman’s history tell us about the Philadelphia Eagles’ offseason to come?

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Howie Roseman has been running the Eagles long enough that we should be able to know what he’s thinking about the state of the team. Will this be an offseason in which he makes a big splash? Will he try to keep things mostly together and patch holes? And what’s Jeffrey Lurie’s role in all of this?Les Bowen joins Zach Berman and Bo Wulf to discuss what might lie ahead, plus reflections on Andy Reid, Nick Sirianni and the state of the industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

P-H-L-Y Eagles podcast on a Thursday high noon, Bo Wolf, Zach Berman, joined in studio today by another special guest. Les Bowen. Les, how are you? I'm great, Bo. How are you? We are good. It is a pleasure to have you to get your perspective on everything that's going on with the Eagles right now. It has been, it has been fun to, like, listen to or read your thoughts that you've been given out.

I know that Zach is very much like, I need to be writing for, every day the rest of my life. I'd like to sort of pick your brain on that. But, but Zach, how are you? Doing well. Excited for the show. Appreciate less coming in. Another former colleague of yours. Another former colleague of mine. And eagerly awaiting the combine

next week, I imagine that we're going to have some resolution soon with Eagles coaching staff. They're like the last team, it seems to formalize the staff. And yeah, I think things pick up. As we've been saying,

next week, things pick up. It accelerates into a different gear. Zach, what is your favorite memory of working with less? Oh, so many good memories of working with less. And I worked with Les at different junctures of my career, too. I was at Sports Week, which was a short-lived daily news publication. And that was my first time working with Les. And I worked, quote, quote, against Les when I was at the Inquirer until we joined together.

I respect Les' work so much. Les, I would say we had a lot of good dinners on the road. I had a nice dinner in Tampa with Les and Paul Domwich that comes to mind. I had a nice... I had a nice dinner.

Les and I at the owners meetings in Orlando where they'll be this year. But from a like work perspective, I was always envious. Les had a really good relationship with Nick Foles' father from I guess stories early on. And so was able,

during the Super Bowl run did a good piece on Foles that, you know, I mean, Larry Foles was like in demand that week and Les was able to speak to him. The restaurateur.

And then speaking of players' parents, I believe this is accurate. Les at the Senior Bowl, the Senior Bowl was a few weeks ago. This was before the Eagles traded up to get Carson Wentz. But Les watched the practice with Carson Wentz's dad.

Is that right? Yes, it is. And that was one of the low lights of my career. in retrospect because here's what happened. So I think his name is Doug. Doug Wentz is sitting there with his wife and his daughter. And they were at that point, you know, really new to all this.

They were thrilled to talk to me. It was great. But I didn't really, at that point, Carson Wentz was kind of an interesting concept, but I had no idea. Eagles still had the 13th pick at that point. We're going to get him or they were. really wanted him. So I didn't get a phone number or anything like that from the man, which I almost always do in these situations. I think something happened like the practice ended abruptly and I had

to get a player or something. And, you know, it was like, oh, great to see you, you know, and I never saw them again. Never laid eyes on any of those people the entire time. Parsons was in Philly. And not that they, maybe they would never have answered if I texted or something, but, you know, You know, you feel like you really, you really bungled something there. This is a conversation we had last week or a couple weeks ago. What is it? Vegas. Was that last week?

I was three weeks ago. Two weeks ago at the Super Bowl that I'm curious on your perspective of because it tracks with that story. I have always thought that like one of my failings as a reporter is I don't want to bother people. Yeah, me neither. Which is a very bad trait. It's a terrible trait to have as a reporter. And so, like, I would, like, it would be a great day to watch Carson Wentz with his dad at practice. But then at the end, I got to bother this guy and ask for his phone number.

And then, like, all these times are going to have to reach out to him. Like, yeah. I don't want to bother the guy. Like, you know, I talk to parents for stories all the time when I'm writing a feature. But then am I going to, like, you know, Derek Barnett gets waived. Do I need to, like, reach out to his mom and be like, What do you think of this? Like, I don't know.

I don't want to bother them. I absolutely feel the same way. And that's one reason I was never a news reporter. You know, early on in my career when I was in Charlotte where I grew up, I had to cover a few things like athletes dying and stuff like that, like a University of South Carolina football player in the heat. And I did enough of that kind of stuff that I thought that I'm not an adversarial. I mean, I'm adversarial when I have to be. but I have to really kind of cite myself up, whereas a really good hard-edged news reporter really looks forward to, not when people die, but, you know, when being, you know, confronting someone or, you know, really.

Well, credit to you, by the way, I'm going to say credit to you in that when Schiff Kelly's dismissed, you go over to his house and knock on his door and get a good job there. It was in the, it was nighttime. I needed to write something that would be a little bit different from whatever people had. And he lived about a mile from me. So it wasn't really that hard. And I didn't get to talk to him. I talked to his girlfriend and his dog. You talk to the dog?

Well, the dog had very little to say. I think that was in your story too. The dog declined comment. Rough. That's good. He thought it was rough. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, it was just something to,

get a lead that nobody else had, it didn't really, but to this day, I can text with Chip. You know, I try to keep on a collegial level with these people when they, I don't like to like burn bridges with people, but I don't. But I also think there's a difference, right, between being confrontational or adversarial with the people who you're covering, who are in positions of power, who like that is your job versus like, you know, people who, this is not their job, you know, like they're just family members or whoever or like they're like, you know, you see, you see a front office member over and like, and you got to like mosey over and have this like sort of forced fake conversation.

And I don't know, it's, it's something that doesn't come naturally. You mentioned parents. And what I found is that they're very different, you know, some of them, you talk to them once and they never want to really. engage again. Sure. You know, like Dallas Goddard's mom, I think I talked to her once,

but after that, there was never any response. But with Zach mentioned Larry Foles. Larry Foles wanted to talk, you know, and if somebody wants to talk to me, I'm very happy to talk to them, you know.

And I've had another, like, Josh Sweets' dad, you know, he's a good guy to talk to. But, it's rare. I mean, as we get further and further into, you know, the current atmosphere of the media in the NFL, it's, it's harder and harder to build those kinds of relationships, to have those kinds of, you know, moments with people. You know, the way the Senior Bowl is now, I would never

probably find Doug Wentz and sit down next to him. You know, it's just, it's a different world. Yeah, it's the it's the transactional nature of some of that stuff that that makes me feel uncomfortable. Like I would much rather have a smaller group of people who I can trust are reliable narrators, right? And they can trust. And it's it's a two-way street. And as opposed to like, now this is this is, again, this is like a failing, right? I'm not going to just spray out 100 texts and hope that like one person responds. I don't know. It just makes me uneasy. What about you, Zach?

Everyone has different... You're a volume shooter? I wouldn't say volume shooter, but I think I accept the fact that there's going to be calls or texts that are unanswered. You know, it's kind of like trying to get a date in your 20s, right? You don't need all of them to respond. You just need one, right? So that's... But I hear what you're saying. I don't want to be an imposition in this. you know, I've had situations similar to less where, you know, I vividly remember I, I covered a murder on a lacrosse team at the University of Virginia.

And I was responsible for knocking on the doors. And it's like that's, it's hard. That's a tough assignment, you know, you're, because up for the reason you mentioned, these are, these are grieving people. And, and you're, you know, you feel like an imposition. But, you know, sometimes it's, it's the job. And the reality is. this is a rationalization, but this is what I always tell myself, is that you never know who wants to talk. And unless you ask, like, like the answer is no if you don't ask. If you ask,

the answer might be yes. And so I always keep that in mind that I try to be polite and respectful about it. But you never know when you're going to come across someone who, who says yes. And like an example of this from my football perspective is, is chip. Kelly never talked about injuries, right? He would always say, I never met with the trainer. I haven't met with the trainer. I haven't met with the trainer. And we would always ask in these Monday press conferences. And then one day, you know, Tim McManus asks and Schip says, I actually just asked Padozzi in the hallway and he told me this. And so it's like, you never know that one day when you might get something. Right. It's a different, yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

Yeah. Less, I'm also curious because you've been writing about your thoughts on the team, how differently, like, do you feel like the distance not being in, like the day-to-day, like the micro stuff has helped your perspective in a way? Oh, I thought you were going to say hurt, but you said help. I think it's, I think sometimes it can help. It can do either. Yeah. You're exactly right.

When I stopped covering the flyers after 13 years, the first year or two after that, I would get kind of frustrated with the beat writers because I would read some of the stuff and I would say, no, no, no. You know, I mean, you can be too close. When you're covering something on the day-to-day basis, and you have to write about it every day, people present themselves, you know,

even if the team is going to crap, nobody sits there and like, you know, puts their hands over their face and admits that they have no answers. They sort of, there's this veneer of professionalism, and you kind of think things are under control or that things are going to work out. And if you're not there and you're not, you know, seeing this, you know, we'll work out these little quirks and we'll be better next week. We'll pick up the Blitz next week. Yeah, the last seven weeks this year were a great example.

I read your stuff and I follow you. And you were saying all along, especially in December, like, this team can't win a game. And I'm sitting here and I don't. see the forest for the trees and I'm saying well look at this match up and the Eagles have this talent mismatch and so it is true you can't be too close to it where if you take a step back and look at the big picture this team can't win a game right yeah yeah and teams get like that that was it reminded me most of Andy Reid's last season where the team started out three and one and then lost 11 of its last 12 and you get to a point where you you just know this team it doesn't

matter whether the right tackle is better than the edge rusher right you know it's team just isn't going to win. They've, they've stopped listening, they've stopped functioning as a unit, you know, and nobody knows why. Nobody can really explain it. Certainly wasn't that Andy Reid was a terrible coach. I think we can all agree. I don't know what happened this year. And I think that I don't think they can fully explain that either. Yeah. I've never seen anything like that where the coach didn't get fired. I mean, to finish the way they finished overall, a protracted period, not just one or two games, but, you know, a month and a half, two months of just futility and the only big move the coach made was a disaster.

Completely backfired. I mean, I don't have anything against Nick Siriani. Obviously, he got them to the Super Bowl the year before. He must not be an idiot, but I've never seen anybody come back from something like that. and it'll be really interesting to see how he does it. And so having covered Jeffrey Lurie for a long time and Howard Roseman, too, why do you think it is that they opted for this sort of half measure? Well, I think it is hard to fire a coach the year after he got you to the Super Bowl.

They don't want to be. They talk, you know, they know that the most successful teams over the long run are teams like the Patriots and Steelers that don't fight. fire coaches willy-nilly and have a new guy every couple years and, you know, a new plan and all that. And then, of course, that's like a selection bias thing, right? Because if they're good, they're not going to replace. Right. Oh, yeah.

Yes, of course. But it's, it's, sometimes it's a conscious decision. I think you can especially say that with the Steelers. There have been years when Mike Tomlin could have gotten fired. Right. And I think John Harbaugh in Baltimore as well, yeah. Absolutely. Oh, Harbaugh was a couple years ago, close, I think, to being fired.

But, you know, it's, they understand. that that's not the way to do things, but I also think they're taking a huge gamble. I think it's kind of a Frankenstein's monster when you have a guy, a head coach who was, and I'm sure you guys have covered this ad nauseum, but I'm on here now, so I get to say it too. You know, you have a coach who was brought in, but at least partly because of his offensive acumen. Yes. And now being told, well, we got somebody else for that, you know, it just seems bizarre to me. It really does, and I can't.

It's very on my radar that like this is, it really does have a potential to like totally backfire. Because like these guys haven't worked together before. You don't know what the personality dynamics are going to be. Of course Nick Siriani is going to want to have a say in the offense. He is an offensive guy. Like I don't know how that stuff is going to work out. Yeah. And I'm curious your perspective from, you started on the beat in 2004, correct?

Two. I'm sorry, 2002. too. So you have you have 22 year frame of reference here and it's it's not like you just moved here. And you know, you saw it for a few decades before that. But knowing Jeffrey Lurie and then seeing Howie Rosman become the GM, how unique do you think the Eagles head coaching job is here, especially post-Andy Reid, seeing the the presence that- And post-chip. Yes, and post-chip that both Andy and- and Howie have, and how have you seen that evolve from 2002 to now? That's a really interesting and complex question. You know, my early years covering the team, I didn't think that much about Jeffrey.

It was Andy's team and Joe Banner's team. And everything else was kind of, you know, Howie was Joe's assistant. In fact, I vividly remember when Bobby Taylor left the Eagles. He was having a contract dispute, and he complained that his agent couldn't even talk to Joe Banner at the day. He made him talk to some guy named Howie, you know. But in those days, it was Andy and Joe, and Jeffrey would talk at training camp and give these long, you know. To Quiz Rogers. He was a big joke with the PR staff, how long it would take to transcribe Jeffrey,

pages and pages of type that would be generated because he'd just kind of riff off the top of his head. And it wasn't, it was like, okay, this guy owns the team. I didn't, he seemed like a nice man. And obviously he'd gotten a stadium built and a practice facility built. And he had good priorities, but I didn't really think about him in terms of football decisions at all. after Andy and Joe left, that changed dramatically, I think. The whole chip thing was really a roller coaster. One of the things I kind of hold against Jeffrey, frankly, is 2015.

You guys remember this. Jeffrey talked right before the season on the practice field. Yep. Before the Atlanta game. And he gave us chapter and verse about what a wonderful leader Chip Kelly was and how great it was and how much he supported Chip Kelly. And this was, you know, everything was great and wonderful with him. And, you know, that he liked Chip Kelly's style.

And when the guy was fired, what, about three months later, we found out that there'd been huge riffs in this fabric. Right. Emotional intelligence was the big. just lying to us. He was just, he felt like, and he told me later that he felt like he needed to, you know, indicate support for Chip, but you can do that without just totally giving people an impression of something that's entirely wrong, you know, you can be restrained in your, well, and we didn't hear from it again, the whole season. And it's a repeated game, right? And so if Jeffries,

owner of the team. And if he comes out and, you know, lies about that, then it becomes hard to take anything he says seriously. Right. And the rest of that season, you know, things went badly. In Detroit, I don't remember whether you guys were with, I remember Tim McManus for some reason, but, you know, that horrible Thanksgiving game in Detroit

where they got blown out by a really bad Lions team. We all thought this is the kind of game that gets a coach fired. Sure. So we were trying to find Jeffrey after the game, and he did a wonderful job of, you know, not being anywhere we were. we went out to the bus. We walked up and I remember walking up and down this tunnel,

you know, looking in corners for Jeffrey. You know, we couldn't find him. But my point is, from that moment where he's like, Chip Kelly is the most wonderful man on earth until the day he was fired, we never heard another word from Jeffrey about this whole situation. So we had no idea.

I mean, we kind of figured things were going bad, but I kind of thought, if you can take yourself back, however many years that was, eight and a half years ago, I thought Chip might survive. You know, it was just one bad year, really. I thought he might have to give up some personnel cloud or something, but, and then all of a sudden, the last week of the season, he's gone.

And that's the kind of stuff that as a reporter kind of drives you nuts, because it's, do I know what's going on here? And obviously I didn't. I thought you might have some thoughts on that chip time. I mean, go to bat to defend your boy. Well, I hear what I hear what Lesa is saying,

and I've had similar conversations, you know, with Jeffrey about it. And I do think part of him, he was trying to believe that, right? He really wanted that to work. Yeah. And I think that because for him to move Howie over,

right for him to give up the organization essentially because if you remember a big sentiment around that knowing one game that they won in 2015 was he wanted the team back right so for him to give that up it was because i think he saw that chip was extraordinarily talented and that he wanted that to work so i think some of that i don't know if it was lying as much as he was trying to convince himself okay but also the flip side to that is keeping howie around tells you that he knew. Oh, he was hedging. He was hedging for sure. He knew that there was a very realistic chance that it wasn't going to work. Yes. Yeah. But that period there.

And then I do think there was a shift in 2016 especially. And as we've written about after the Super Bowl in 2017, where it was, I think, I don't want to say more heavy-handed, but definitely more of a role. and I mean, he wasn't the owner. He was the CEO. Yeah. And I think that distinction was clear. He started talking more about football concepts. Yeah.

Like you remember the owners meeting, whatever owner's meeting it was, where the Arford date. Yeah, 2004. I'm sorry, 2016. Yep, 2016. He wouldn't, we didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Yeah, radio frequency identification. Over and over again about this.

And so we went to Doug, I guess it was. And Doug really didn't know what he was talking about. You know, the ARFIT data was the biometric stuff that they, for people out there. The player tracking data. Yeah, player tracking data. And they had just had a big presentation on this to the owners. And Jeffrey was in love. You know, he had never, you know, this was the greatest thing ever.

And that's the kind of thing that gets Jeffrey's attention. He loves being on the vanguard of something. It's part of, I think, why he was so smitten with Jim to begin with, right? I don't blame him. It's good to be on the vanguard of things. It is. But you can't chase trends. Every trend that comes along isn't the greatest thing that ever happened.

And I think for a while, Jeffrey was a little bit like that. I don't know that he's like that all the time. I think he's a very intelligent man. I think he, as I said, I think he has good priorities. One thing, and I think as a fan, if you were like drafting owners, he would probably be in the top three. Oh, and, you know, the one thing I learned, I did a kind of stupid little coffee table Eagles book years ago. It wasn't stupid. It was a good book.

I enjoyed it. It paid for some college. tuition for kids. And that we're talking. Yeah, absolutely. But the one thing that I really gleaned while doing that, you know, you never think you're going to learn too much about a team you've been covering for many years. But looking back and really reading about Eagles ownership over the years, Jeffrey Lurie is far

in a way the best. The Eagles never had decent ownership, really. I mean, even they were sold between the 48 and 49 championships that they won. You know, I mean, it just wasn't ever a real strong organization that had, you know, they'd never had a practice facility. They never had their own stadium, you know. I mean, it was just, it was a real, for an old and tradition-steeped organization that had so much of a following, until Lurie got here, there really wasn't ownership that had all the right priority. and invested money and had money and wasn't gambling it away like Leonard Toes and trying to move the team.

And, you know, I mean, Jeffrey's ownership is is incredibly successful. And when I criticize him, I want to make sure everybody understands that I do know that. Yeah. If I can ask you, too, though, by the way, because as you were talking, it made me think you covered a really dynamic period of Ed Snyder's ownership. Yeah. And he was quite involved. And it's not necessarily, as Beau used to reference being on the Vanguard. It was, and correct me if I'm wrong, with Ed Snyder was almost like, like pining for a time that once was.

Sometimes. Yeah. So how would you compare those, the ownership period you covered with Jeffrey Lurie and the ownership period you covered with Ed Snyder? Well, long story short, my Ed Snyder years were tour. the end of his, you know, the glory years were the 70s and maybe the 80s. But I started covering him 89 and he had just moved out to California with his second wife and was trying to be more of a TV producer. And Jay Snyder, his son, was running the team. But that didn't, the fires were for a lot of reasons that really weren't Jay Snyder's fault. In decline, they hadn't drafted well

in the late 80s. And didn't they go. And didn't they? got into the, Jay Snyder fired Bob Clark. He wanted to take over the team himself. Jay wanted to be Jerry Jones. Yeah. You know. And things were, they missed the playoffs a couple years in a row, which hadn't happened. And they had the All-Star game in 1992 at the spectrum. And the fans spent the whole game chanting, Jay must go. And Ed flew back from the coast. This is a different era before everything was streamed everywhere, and there was social media. You know, Ed flew back from the coast blissfully unaware, I think, to watch the All-Star game. Here's people chanting, Jay Must Go the entire game.

And Ed moved back to Philly and got very involved. And they traded for Eric Lindross, which, in retrospect, you could really make a good argument that having drafted Peter Forsberg and being in an era when the NHL was about to expand from 21 to 30 teams inside a decade that it was a disastrous trade in some respects. But, you know, Ed wanted everybody talking about the Flyers. He wanted to be at the Vanguard, you know, a little bit like Jeffrey. I don't think he wanted the 70s. I think that's a misperception that he wanted.

the team to beat everybody up. But he wanted the flyers to be good, and he was very impatient as he got older about that, and he didn't stick with anything very long, you know. And that impatience, I think, cost them quite a bit. But they got really close to winning again, you know, several times. They've been in the finals, I think, six times, seven times since they won the Stanley Cup. I mean, I don't think anybody else.

They're like the Buffalo Bills of hockey since the mid-70s. But, you know, anyway, Ed was a more visceral sort of, he had that sort of feel for the blue collar. You know, one playoff run, we were in Pittsburgh at the William Penn Hotel, and Ed was holding court in the bar, buying drinks for all of us, which we didn't really want. because you're not supposed to take stuff like that. Sure, if you're doing to tell us that. Ed would like, you know, he was a, you know, he'd pound his fist on the table and tell you what he thought and, you know, argue with you.

Oh, I love that. You know, I mean, you don't get that with Jeffrey. No. Yeah. Ed, one time, we were at the end of a long road trip. We were in Atlanta, and I had one sport coat for this road trip, and we'd been through a bunch of cities, a bunch of overhead bins that my sport coat had been cramped into. Sure.

And, uh, Julia, again. Ed looked at me and said, Ed looked at me and said, uh, Les, your sport coat looks like crap. You need to buy another one. And, you know, Jeffrey just isn't good. He's not paying attention to sports. Okay. By the way, uh, there is a shout out here, Les. Philip says he bought your book. Oh, he says it was a great read for an Eagles fan in Belgium. Well, I'm glad, Philip. Thanks. I'm curious what Zach will think about whether I have several boxes of it. left. There you go. If anybody out there needs one. I like that. What you do is you put that out on Twitter. You say

you'll do a signed copy and they'll pay for, you know, you include postage and they've emmo you the money. It's a great, it's a great situation. There you go. I'm not sure how useful the book is at this point. I'm curious if Zach thinks that there's a way to learn new information about a team you cover from writing a book about them, but. Yeah, yeah, quite

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Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Lessa, I want to ask you about something that we talked about over the past couple of days, and that is Howie Roseman, contra Joe Banner, right, has been more willing to keep the guys around for a long time, right? These franchise tent pulls. And now with Jason Kelsey, Fletcher Cox, and Brandon Graham all potentially coming back, potentially not coming back. Do you think that they want those guys back? Or do you think that they are not so secretly hoping that like it's the end of the road? Boy, that's a real good question. I can't imagine they don't want Kelsey back. He's still one of the very best centers in the league. They don't know that,

replacing a Hall of Fame level player in any sport is really fraught. I mean, a lot of times teams think, well, we've got this guy, but you're talking about one of the all-time grades of your franchise. I remember vividly, I did a little bit of Phillies coverage early in my career. I was there in 1989 when Mike Schmidt retired, and the Phillies had Rick Shoe. They were going to be okay. I mean, I'm not going to, you know, compare Juergens to Rick Shoe, but, you know, Juergens gets hurt. He's never really, you know, we don't know that he's going to be top center, one of the great bulwarks of the franchise.

I think Jason Kelsey at this point would be a huge loss, you know, to the team. The other two guys, you know, Brandon Graham, if he wants to hang around in a ceremonial role and play a few snaps here and there. I don't know what their roster situation is and how they, you know, that would be fine with me, not really having to handle the 53 or I don't know, but I can't see that that would hurt the team in any way. Fletcher Cox is a little tougher. I don't know what he's looking for money-wise. I'm assuming Brandon, Graham at this point, will take whatever you're willing to give.

Yeah, that's our understanding as well. With Fletch, he makes a lot of money. I don't know what. I thought during the really bad spell, frankly, I thought Fletch was playing better than the other interior line when they had. And that's another consideration. It's so hard to know what decisions to make with this team after what happened because there's nobody that you really.

And they're looking for answers. Yeah. But there's no way all three of them are going to be back probably. I think it's a huge leadership. transition for this team. I think it's a transition that the Eagles kind of want to make. You see how he kind of trying to force Nikobe Dean into, you know, the voice of the defense when he, we don't know that he can even play yet. Yeah, I, boy, that's, that's a big. And if you missed it on yesterday's episode, Josh Tolentino telling us that that Nicopa Dean had Liz Franks in both feet.

Really? Yeah. I did not know that. But wild, you know, I'm, I was really struck by Howie's comments a few weeks ago because they were so at odds with what we've seen. When the Kobe Dean has played, he's been okay. It's been fine. Okay. Fine. Yeah.

They really are putting a lot of weight on that guy, though. They really apparently see him as a lynchpin here. Unless it's a, you know, Jeffrey Lurie talking about what a good of the leader, Chip Kelly is situation. Again, yeah, yeah, it could be. On the topic of the middle of the defense, you are one who called Jerry Robinson about the last time the Eagles drafted a linebacker. And you've seen the Eagles kind of go through this cycle. So I bring that up because the Eagles don't typically draft linebackers high.

And you seem to go through this cycle of veteran free agent safeties. And you had a tweet the other day where you said that the Eagles kind of go for a guy sometimes two years too late. what's your sense of how the Eagles will approach the middle of the defense? Do you think it's going to be keep taking stabs at these value plays, or do you think they do something different than they've done the past few years? Well, every year for the last, oh, I don't know, seven or eight years, I've confidently predicted that the Eagles will draft a corner in the first or second round. And other than Sidney Jones, I've been wrong every year.

So I don't know, but they have to get a good young corner somehow. And I assume the best way to do that is through the draft. And I think it's a decent draft for corners from what I read. Safety, I have no idea what they're going to do. The thing that bothers me about Howie and the safety and linebacker positions is Howie gets a lot of credit when things work out well and a lot of blame when things don't. And it just seems like the years that things work out well, stuff drops in his lap.

He doesn't do anything real proactive at those positions. It just so happens that somebody wants to get rid of CJ Gardner Johnson right before the season starts or something. Maybe he's still in a position the trade for him, but yeah. Yeah. You know, with the linebacker position, it's like some years you end up with Alex Singleton and a couple guys nobody ever heard of. And some years you end up with T.J. Edwards and Keziere White.

you know, who can say, you know. That's just not, I don't, I understand valuation. I think that is the lesson, though, that like at some positions, you can be patient because there is going to be turnover and there are going to be opposite. You can be patient, but you have to have decent quality professional players. And if you can add something better, so be it. You can't just like whatever comes in over the transom is what we're going to play at linebacker, which is some years, frankly, is what it feels like around here.

You know, and I do think the league has changed. You know, during the Andy years and the chip years, I was all about, you know, the idea that they didn't draft a linebacker in the first round. Nobody really, you know, it's, linebacker isn't a position where you draft someone, certainly not high in the first round. But the league is changing again. And I think you see linebacking making a big difference with the teams that were in the Super Bowl this year. You can't say they didn't have good linebackers.

You can't say they drafted them in the first round because they didn't. You know, Fred Warner was third round, just like Davion Taylor, but different. You know, but you've got to find real talent in the draft, I think, at corner and at linebacker. And I don't know what you do at safety. Maybe a draft. They just aren't very good at drafting safeties. well they they sort of like

recognized that a while ago and decided to back off doing it and instead went to free agent route and they had a lot of success there with Malcolm Jenkins and Rodney McLeod and that sort of made sense now Sydney Brown last year

was the first guy who sort of changed that and he was their red star player and I think Sidney Brown I think there's reason to be optimistic now right he's coming off the AC exactly so they need to I think that's why

I think safety is a free agent move for them and corner is a draft move. That makes sense to me. That definitely makes sense to me. And then you've got to worry about linebacker and the edge rush and what's going on there. And the whole Hassan Reddick, Josh Sweat dynamic,

you guys, I happen to catch one of your podcasts, I guess about a week ago you were talking about that. That is really a... Sweets three years younger, but he has that knee that was just totally rebuilt. worried about it. And people will say, you know, you can see him limp. I mean, he's... The way he runs, yeah. Remember when he ran, we had that pick six? And also, you know, I think, Zach, you made the point. Hassan Reddick's just a better player. I mean, even at his best,

Josh Sweat, if Josh Sweat is up against a Pro Bowl tackle, he doesn't do much. With Hassan Redick, that's not necessarily true. I agree. But with Hassan Redick, I took a look this morning, just because every now and then I like to look up a fact, even though I don't really traffic in those very much. You know, all the top five edge rushers are making 25 million or better. Yeah. But they're all guys that I would say are better players than Hassan, really, and not just off of what happened last year,

but just in general. He's small. He's not a guy that, you know, it sets the edge that really dominates the game. He can cause chaos, you know, but sometimes he doesn't. You know, he's not Miles Garrett, certainly. Are you going to pay him like that? I wouldn't.

And I don't know what this, how do you think all this is going to end up with the agent seeking the trade? To me, that's just a team telling the agent, yeah, your numbers are out of the universe here. Go talk to some other teams and get back to me when they tell you that. Tell me what the best number you can get.

They're never going to do that. either. Tell me what the best enough you can get is. So my perspective on that is that, you know, the franchise tag window open two days ago that I expect Josh Allen from the Jags, Brian Byrds to be tagged, maybe Bryce Huff. I don't think the top edge rushers are going to hit the market. I think Hassan Reddick is going to get a number that the Eagles aren't going to pay. Oh, okay.

So the matter. Because you think those guys aren't going to be. Yeah. And I think there are going to be teams that are looking for difference-making edge rushers. It's not a good draft. for that group, even if it is, difference of making edge rushers go in the top 10 in the draft, right? So you lose.

So you have those factors. And if you want an edge rusher, I think you're going to have to trade for one. There's a reason why Chicago made that trade for Montez Sweat at the deadline. And you can say it's a fullest trade to give up a pick when you can get a guy who's going to hit the market. A lot of these players don't hit the market. There's certain positions that, you know, I mean, edge rusher, offensive tackle are positions where teams try to do their best to keep these guys in-house.

And that's why we did a show last week where we went through the edge rusher trades. There are more high-profile edge-rusher trades than there are high-profile safety trades because safety's hit to market. Edge-rushers don't. And that's why I think Hassan Redick is going to find the number he's looking for. The question is whether that team will give the number and the draft pick compensation. Right. Because I think both of those have to fit the Eagles framework. Yeah, absolutely.

You can't give Asan Redick away if you're the Eagles. You can't even give him away for like a mid-round pick. I mean, that would be a disaster, I think, for the Eagle. But I did see a Jets rider, at least one Jets rider, the guy who used to be Cover the Eagles for NJ.org.com. Zach Rosenblatt from that. Good job. Jack does.

They'll take me back to the old book song soon. Spells his name wrong, though. He's supposed with a K. Oh, okay. But he actually tweeted that he doesn't think the Jets will tag. Right. Right. So, but yeah, that wouldn't make a huge, I mean, the other guys you mentioned, I'm sure.

But that also brings to mind, which is actually the, I think the headline of this show on the YouTube is that like, I mean, you got, you know Howie Roseman. You know that he loves to make a splash. Like the way that last year collapsed. Right. I expect him to be seeking out some pretty significant moves. and they don't have a ton of cap space to make that happen. And so, like, I do think that there is potential for, like, one or two, quote-unquote, like, blockbuster trades for Howie to make. I think you're probably right.

Also, cap space was always one of my biggest bugaboo's as a beat writer. I hate cap space. Yeah, they have like 20 million right now, but the cap's going to go up five to seven million. And then I saw something yesterday from somebody about, a couple moves they could make that would double that. Well, if you double that, then you've got cap space coming out the wazoo. I mean, generally speaking, they are going to be able to find a way to make a move that they want to be able to make. Yes.

And also, I think people sometimes don't understand that when you sign somebody to a big free agent contract and you talk about the cap hit, the first year, usually the cap hit is very, very low. You know, it just... And this is also sort of a Jeffrey conversation because what the real difference maker is, everybody is able to manipulate the cap if they want to that way, but it requires having an owner who's willing to pay the cash, which not every team has. Which the Eagles do.

Right. The Eagles are always at the top of the league in cash spent. And I don't think, you know, fans really understand that very much. I think Jeffrey and Howie, there are things that I would certainly change about them, but I think fans have, we were talking about the coaching situation a while ago

and how I think there's this narrative with some fans that Jeffrey and Howley are these terrible Svengali type figures who, you know, the coaches are just puppets and they make all these terrible decisions. You know, the franchise wouldn't have done as well as it's done this century if Jeffrey and Howley were, you know, terrible Machiavellian, you know,

villains who are just intent on destroying the fans' hopes and dreams. I do think they do, you know, they're pretty, I trust them more than I trust some of the people they hire sometimes to get things, if that makes any sense. And this is like a, you know, it's like an interview question. What's your biggest weakness is I care too much? But like I do think that if one of their negatives is that, and how I will say this, he's always trying to win the Super Bowl that year. And sometimes I think that that backfires and sort of makes the whole House of Cards collapse.

Yeah. And that's a good. There's a conversation this year about are the Eagles really in the position they were in a year ago where you could see them in the Super Bowl or do they need to kind of marshal their resources here and sort of reset a little bit? I don't know. Have you guys thought about that at all? Yeah, I would say too much.

I probably spent too much time thinking about that. And I think the big question there is that Howie Roseman made a comment in that press conference was what three weeks ago now, four weeks ago now, where he said you don't want to overreact to an aberration or something along those lines. And I think a big question for the team, and it's one I'll probably pose next week, is do you view what happened at the end of the season in aberration? or do you view it as an indication of greater problems? And I think the perspective that they have on that would shape whether they think it's just changing the coordinators, add a piece here, tinker there, or if they need to take a step back

and make some major changes with this team. That's the biggest thing. That and Jalen Hertz are the two overweening questions of this. where he said it on jailing yeah about jalen just like what the hell happened you know I would say from game one last year he looked you know everybody says he looks stoic to me last season he never really looked stoic he looked frustrated he looked uh exasperated he looked uncertain uh I don't know what any of that was about and that's why we have crazy rumors floating around the atmosphere about, you know,

dysfunction within the team. Something, you know, he did play very, very well at some points, but when I had a podcast several months ago, I had Brandon Brooks on. And it was a really interesting conversation. I need your booking producer. That's a good one. Yeah. Well, I just asked Brandon, you know.

but he's trying to get a Wall Street career going on. And he's a really interesting guy. And I was, this was before the season. And I was asking him what his thoughts about the Eagles. And he says, well, as long as Jaylon Hertz is the quarterback, I think they'll be fine. And that was really what we all thought a year ago, you know. Yeah. And I just don't know what happened.

I see this guy, you know, run around out there and throw the ball out of bounds. and, you know, take one-yard sacks for no reason running out of bounds. And I don't know what the hell he's, I don't know what's in his head. I don't know who he was angry with, who he was disappointed in, but maybe it was himself. But something was very wrong there. And I still want to see an explanation for that. And along those lines, there was a tweet that Derek Gunn had had yesterday saying that Jalen Hertz was pulled in a lot of directions post-contract.

And then he also had a line in there that said that essentially after Dom DeSandro's suspension, Nick Siriani didn't have the person who kept him in emotional check on the sideline. And that led to, you know, fights with coaches, players, whatever it may be. We've discussed, Bo and I on the show numbers of times, Jalen's personality, Jones demeanor. We discussed Nick's personality, Nick's demeanor. What's your perspective on that?

And from a bigger picture, you've dealt with a lot of February's in Eagles world where the team might be quiet. I mean, we said at the top of the show, they still haven't even announced their coaching staff. We still don't know that. We haven't. The coordinator is the offensive coordinator.

Yeah, we haven't heard, you know, the coordinators speak with an Eagles background behind. Right. The Eagles have been purpose. quiet in recent weeks. What's your perspective on how to kind of navigate, how that void of team statements and then multiple reports coming out during this, this period?

Well, I think, you know, gossip abores a vacuum, just like nature, you know, it's good reference. If you don't give. Zach's going to steal that. Yes, I will. If you don't give people explanations for things, they come up with their own explanations. Yes. and their own explanations can be outlandish and bizarre,

but they gain some credence because who knows what happened. Something ridiculous happened. Maybe it's, you know, maybe there was some huge scandal. Maybe they were all on drugs. You know, maybe that, you know. I mean, you can say anything right now and get some people to believe it because nothing like that had ever happened before to a team that was 10 and 1. So I do think that that hurts them.

the Eagles, the fact that there's no explanation for any of this and that they're being so quiet and so secretive. And part of it is, part of the fixation on what must have happened is you don't have any, you know, Kellan Moore quotes to, you know, you can't dissect what he said about what he's going to do to the offense because he hasn't said anything. I mean, you need something else to keep people occupied. You need to make the news. what you want it to be, and they're not doing any, they're not making any news. They're just, but the Dom part of that was really interesting. I mean, if, I can't believe that's literally true.

Just, because you can't, you, you wouldn't have a head coach who can't. Right. He wouldn't have survived if that was that. Who needs the security director to keep him from yelling at coaches and players. You know, I, I just, I don't see. Jeffrey and Howie. It also didn't like the the margins in those games were so vast. It was not like Nick being extra distracted on the sideline was the difference in those games.

It was much more of a like a yeah. But Nick's demeanor, I think you asked me about Nick and Jalen. I think they're very, very, very different people. Yes. And the thing that supposedly unites them is their competitiveness. But if one sees the other. as being focused in a negative way, that could be very frustrating to that person.

If Jalen sees Nick's, you know, childish yelling at opposing fans as, you know, why isn't this guy thinking about what we need to do on third and five, you know, that can become a big problem. If Nix wants Jalen to be a quarterback who runs around, you know, pounding people on the chest and grabbing their face masks and so forth, that can be a problem. You know, I think there's a lot of, when people are that different, and they really are. Yes. Very, very, very different in their approach to things. I think there's a lot of room for conflict there. And I think that this circles back to what you were talking about with the longevity,

you know of Jeffrey Lurie wanting to maintain some consistency and you talked about you know he's in the he's in the Fletcher Cox seat I keep coming back to this Fletcher Cox a few months ago said like one of his his like core beliefs that he tells to coaches is the calmer you are the calmer we are yes and the way that Nick acts again like I can I can buy into it at times but it is not suggestive of long-term Right? Absolutely. Even the Super Bowl year, that game at Indianapolis, where he was so upset about Frank Ryan, the Eagles played a terrible game that day. I mean, that was not a good Indianapolis team. Right. And obviously, he cared that much all week long. Right. Right. And so was that a detriment?

And can't he see that that's a debt? I mean, if he can't learn from stuff like that, then I think he really have a very bad situation. I got to think they've made this point to him and that he's going to be a little more under control, but we haven't seen it. Anything else that you want to pick on less with this was, this was, this is fun. We didn't get to any reading or, yeah, I have a shuffleboard journalism coming out at the old folks home, you know, this afternoon. Oh, go ahead. Well, here, so, so I hope that our listeners. read your blog. Give us the plug.

If you don't mind. Oh, Lesbohensjohn.com. And, you know, I hope that they used to listen to your podcast and that they follow you on social media. But I find it this way as saying, we're lucky enough to have your presence here. But your pace of life is different than when you're at the team facility every day. What's better and what's worse than,

And, you know, I'm curious, it's almost like civilian life now that you're living. How's it different? How's it better? How's it worse? Well, it's better in that I can go to the gym anytime I want. I can visit. Big Flags. I have two sons, one in Denver and one in North Carolina.

I can, you know, we can make a trip. We can plan a trip. We're not tied to, you know, the Eagle schedule in doing that. those things are all better and you know at 68 I turned 68 the other day I don't want to be getting on planes on two hours sleep and that sort of stuff I do miss however I'm not you know I do miss there are times when I'd like to be writing for an outlet that would really you know people would actually see a lot of you know more people would see what I have to say and I would like to be able to ask questions sometimes of athletes and coaches. But more than anything else,

I would love to be around the guys, the people, not just guys, some of them are women, who cover the team. I miss that incredibly. You know, and I think probably some of the people watching don't know this, but you can't just go down to Novacare and hang out. Sure. You have part of a credentialed outlet, and I'm not. So, you know, seeing this first time I've seen you guys since last summer, I guess. So, you know, that's the biggest negative to me is not having that peer group. Also, not just from a friendship standpoint, but when you're thinking about the team, and as I still do quite a bit, obviously, you have people to bounce things off of and to sort of, writers who are competing don't share information that much, but somebody will say something.

And one of you will have an insight into that or somebody will have another type of insight and you'll sort of work your way through what exactly this meant. And it's much easier to get caught wrong-footed when you misunderstand. I've done that a few times in recent months, sort of misunderstood what somebody's point was, you know, because I'm not talking to you guys about it. So anyway, that's a long way of saying, yeah, I don't miss the work, but I miss the people. Are there pieces of writing that you miss? What are the types of stories that you miss being able to tell? Well, I am sort of like the last buggy whip manufacturer or last blacksmith in that I really loved writing game stories,

which for the last 20 years in the journalism industry have been considered, you know, totally irrelevant and stupid. But I didn't write them like, you know, okay, here's a few paragraphs about what happened. you know, I tried to write them as, you know, here's some perspective on why things went as they did. Here's what it sounded like. Here's what it felt like. Here's what it smelled like, you know. And I don't see a lot of that, frankly, today. And I guess nobody wants it, but I enjoy doing it. I like those stories. I liked the big events, you know. Yeah. The combine was a grind, but you learned a lot, I think, from stuff like that,

and you spent time with people. And yeah, those are all things that were valuable to me. Yes. Well, Les, you have an open invitation to come back anytime you are. Thank you so much. This was a pleasure. Anything else? I'm honored to be here. Well, we appreciate it, and we thank you very much. Check out Les. Bowens John, and we hope to have you back soon, Les. So thank to everybody for listening and watching to this episode back tomorrow at noon, Zach and handsome Rich sitting down for a nice little conversation. And then we are off to Indianapolis for the combine next week for all of us here at PHLY.

We thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. We will talk to you tomorrow. And as always, we love you.