Written by Reuben Frank at CSNPhilly
Everybody else is allowed to rip Chip Kelly for the long-term damage he did to the Eagles’ roster.
Why not Howie Roseman too?
Roseman took a few thinly-veiled shots at Kelly during his press briefing on Wednesday morning at the NovaCare Complex:
• His reference to the team’s lack of a second-round pick in last year’s draft — Kelly shipped it to the Rams in 2015 along with Nick Foles;
• Without prompting, he connected the Eagles’ lack of offensive firepower this past year to Kelly’s decisions to release DeSean Jackson, trade LeSean McCoy and fail to re-sign Jeremy Maclin;
• Roseman spoke several times about the team’s lack of salary cap space going into this offseason, which is at least in part a product of Kelly’s one year running the personnel department;
• And he criticized Kelly’s handling of the quarterback position, which left the Eagles without any quarterbacks under contract following last year.
Asked specifically how difficult it’s been for him to undo some of Kelly’s ill-advised moves, here’s how Roseman responded:
“You know, I think you’re just dealing with the reality of the situation. I could say sitting up here last year, it was challenging. It was a challenging situation and it starts with the quarterback position. We didn’t have a starting quarterback under contract. (Sam Bradford) was a free agent. We were picking 13th with no two (second-round pick).
“And we sat down and we said if we can come out of this offseason, and sit here next season at this time and feel like we had a permanent answer at that position, we’re going in the right direction.”
Howie declined to speak specifically about Maclin, Jackson and McCoy, since all are currently under contract with other teams and that could be construed as tampering.
But he certainly indirectly discussed them.
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