WHILE CHATTING WITH players and coaches before a November matchup against the Texans, Howie Roseman, Philadelphia Eagles GM and executive vice president, spotted a group of Eagles fans in the first row of Houston’s NRG Stadium.
The fans began chanting his name. Roseman, with noticeable swagger, walked slowly toward them, making a beeline for one fan in particular, a man wearing a Phillies jersey who was holding up a hand-drawn, poster board sign.
“Howie You Are Forgiven!” the top half of the sign read. On the bottom half, the name of Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown, acquired in a trade by Roseman during the offseason, loomed large over the deleted names of previous Eagles wide receivers: Nelson Agholor, J.J.-Arcega Whiteside and Jalen Reagor. All Roseman draft acquisitions; all no longer with the team; and all universally regarded as busts.
Roseman, stone-faced, hushed the group of fans, then pointed his finger at the man holding the sign.
“I’m F’ing forgiven for your first F’ing Super Bowl?” Roseman quipped. “F you!”
The fans erupted with cheers. Roseman let loose a massive grin. He even posed for a selfie before sauntering back toward the field. The video was posted to Twitter and became a viral moment of the best kind.
It’s hard to imagine, with any other NFL franchise, a frequently maligned general manager shouting F-bombs at fans without controversy erupting. Close your eyes and it’s easy to picture a tearful apology, or a carefully worded statement expressing contrition. But in Philadelphia, the exchange might as well have been an expression of familial love.
“Howie has been hated and loved, then hated again, then loved again,” Eagles center Jason Kelce says. “It just shows you that being the general manager is really hard. There are a lot of things that go into that job. But I’ve been really happy to see him persevere through all that. It’s tough, especially in this city.”
Philadelphia (14-3) enters the playoffs with the NFL’s best record and is one of the favorites to hoist the Lombardi Trophy next month. The league’s most temperamental fan base, one that was openly calling for his firing 21 months ago, has embraced its GM once again.
It is a development very few would have predicted in 2020, when the Eagles went 4-11-1, then cut ties with quarterback Carson Wentz and coach Doug Pederson, the two men handpicked by Roseman in 2016 to be the face of the franchise for the foreseeable future. Getting rid of Wentz despite trading up to get him (and signing him to a large contract extension in 2019) would have cost most general managers their job. Instead, it jump-started one of the most unlikely rebirths in the history of Philadelphia sports. In the past two years, Roseman, who is 47, has assembled the NFL’s best roster.
He has earned (for the moment) the right to peacock.
Roseman is wary — to say the least — of taking a victory lap. ESPN reached out to him several times throughout the season hoping he would be willing to discuss the things that have shaped him during his eventful, volatile, mercurial 23-year tenure with the Eagles. He repeatedly declined.
“Howie is very sensitive to the unintended interpretations that can come from talking about yourself in a piece like this,” a team spokesperson said. “Humble and hungry is his goal right now.”
It was an understandable decision. After all, few NFL executives know better than Roseman does how quickly fortunes can change. It has even played out in miniature this season.
Although Philadelphia looked like the NFL’s best team for the majority of 2022, a shoulder injury to quarterback Jalen Hurts nearly cost the Eagles the No. 1 overall seed in the playoffs. Suddenly the juggernaut Roseman had expertly assembled looked vulnerable.
It might have been unsettling to some,…
Read More: How Eagles GM Howie Roseman built the best roster in the NFL