Howie Roseman was a guest on sports business and Villanova guy and his neighbor Andrew Brandt’s podcast. It wasn’t exactly the insightful, introspective interview we’ve come to expect from podcasts, but Roseman opened up at least a bit to his buddy Brandt.

Most notable – to me – was Roseman explaining why Doug Pederson was the right man for the job, in which he basically confirmed that Doug was the most nepotistic hire possible:

“When we went into the coaching search, we had to find the coach who was best for the Eagles. Maybe not the best coach for other teams who were looking for a head coach. Maybe not the best coach for what the media thought was the best coach. But what was the best coach for the Eagles. And what were we looking for? We were looking for a leader. We were looking for someone who had a clear plan. We were looking for someone who understood this market, and the people in this market, and someone who understood how it worked like when we were having incredible success. And so, Coach Pederson had all of those qualities.”

Translation: We didn’t hire the most qualified guy, we hired the guy whom Mr. Lurie will feel most comfortable. After the surly Chip Kelly, and to an extent, Andy Reid, we needed someone who would not further irritate fans after tough losses, mostly for marketing and sports talk radio purposes. We needed a more pleasant man with whom we were comfortable, who was, uh, here-ish when things were good, even though the league has changed three times since then, because Mr. Lurie tasted change and he didn’t like it. There is one way to do things and one way only, and that is to recreate the Andy Reid era, and short of tampering and paying him a comical sum of money to come back, at risk of looking like the absolute biggest laughingstock in the league, we decided to hire his right-hand man, Dopey Doug Pederson.

Not to beat a dead horse, but is my problem with the hire. Maybe Doug turns out to be a good coach, maybe he doesn’t. But the Eagles’ reasons for hiring him were all wrong. They hired a person with whom they were comfortable, whom they could control, who wouldn’t rankle. That’s exactly not the recipe for success. Reinstating Roseman was the same thing. 17 years. He’s been here 17 years, ever since he nagged Joe Banner for a job after the staffs at the University of Florida – “Unfortunately Steve Spurrier had other ideas” – and Jets laughed him away.  That’s the 2016 Eagles– they’ve gone from the most progressive football team in perhaps the world, to being run by certified company men Roseman and Pederson. It’s hard to, like, buy-in to all of that right now.

More: Roseman was pretty tight-lipped about the hot-button topics– Bradford, free agency, etc. He danced around questions about the Bradford situation, saying only that drafting eventual replacements happens at every position, and gave no timetable for when he would like Wentz to become the starter. He also ticked off the merits of his free agent signings and was never pressed on whether or not he was spending too much.

Still, it was a good 20-minute or so interview and well worth your time, considering the alternative today might be the sort of absurd opinions you’ll see in our next post…