This makes me want to punch small kittens.

Howie Roseman was in-studio(!) with Angelo Cataldi this morning and was asked about his piss poor explanation for trading Eric Rowe, who had an (easy) interception in the AFC Championship last night and will probably get a pick-six in the Super Bowl. Roseman said his nine-year-old didn’t understand his first explanation, and I imagine he’s not going to understand the second:

“When the 9-year-old boy doesn’t understand you [press conference] answer, it’s probably a problem. And I said the reason you don’t understand is because it wasn’t coherent. It didn’t make any freakin’ sense.”

…

“So I think it’s good to go back to the process. It’s the first week of the season, and we get this offer, and it’s the Patriots. And we’re not sitting there thinking we’re getting over on Bill Belichick, maybe the best evaluator of defensive backs in the history of the NFL. What we were thinking about was where he was on our depth chart – at that time our starting three guys were Nolan, Leodis, Ron Brooks – Jalen Mills at that point in camp had beat him out so he’s the fourth guy. And then when we spoke with our coaches they said that Malcolm would be the next guy in the slot. So for where we were and what his role was at the time, we thought it was pretty good value. For them to give up that kind of pick, a fourth that could be a third, we knew they had a role for him. We knew there was an opportunity, and we had to do what we think is best for us. Saying that, we probably make 50 decisions a year that are really real decisions that we sit down and make. To say that we don’t go back and think about them and think about if we were right, I mean that’s part of it you know? You wanna hit as many as you can but when you’re watching games of other players that you had here, that’s the hard part about doing it. And that’s why Sundays are…do we have a beer sponsor here I can shout out?

Angelo Cataldi: “If you need a beer we’ll hook you up.”

“That’s why you gotta watch some of these games like that and it gives you an opportunity to reflect. At the same time you gotta get guys that fit your scheme and make sense for the Philadelphia Eagles and I think that’s most important.”

Good Christ. I have a real problem when GMs excuse poor decisions by explaining that at the time such and such player wasn’t as good as he is now, or didn’t fit the scheme (WHAT EXACTLY IS THE EAGLES’ SCHEME?), or had “””better””” players in front of him. That’s literally the job of the GM— to evaluate future success. No one is perfect, and no one is going to get everything right, but the good ones get a lot more right than wrong. Howie, throughout his career, has gotten more wrong than right. And trading Eric Rowe for a fourth round draft pick next year because the the collective stiffs in the Eagles’ secondary were ahead of him on the depth chart and then months later he’s contributing on a Super Bowl team… well, yeah, there’s no excuse for that. Just say you goofed and move on.