Report: Howie Roseman was "Significant Reason" why Brandon Staley Canceled Eagles Interview
At the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jeff McLane wrote a Monday column titled “What we learned from Eagles-Raiders: Howie Roseman shouldn’t escape culpability.”
Thrown into the column was a nugget that I don’t believe I’ve seen reported elsewhere, involving first-year Chargers head coach Brandon Staley:
It starts at the top with owner Jeffrey Lurie, of course. He made the final call to hire Sirianni. Every major decision is made with his involvement in mind. Howie Roseman has survived more head coaching fires than any other current general manager partly because he has successfully managed up. And managing up, in this sense, is allowing for Lurie to be his football confidant. The owner can do so as he pleases. It’s his team. But his closest advisor is a sycophant.
The co-dependent relationship at the top clearly influenced the Sirianni hire, in that it needed a coach who wouldn’t block Lurie or force Roseman out. Brandon Staley had many reasons for taking the Chargers job — Justin Herbert being maybe the most prominent — but Roseman was a significant reason why he canceled a scheduled interview, two NFL sources close to the situation said. Lurie certainly didn’t want to bring in a failure. He has done fairly well in identifying unproven coaches. But he may have finally crapped out on his first roll.
“Roseman was a significant reason why he canceled a scheduled interview,” Jeff writes.
The timeline is a little fuzzy. There were reports dating back to January 16th that the Eagles were bringing in Staley for an interview. Then, on January 17th, Ian Rapoport rapoported that Staley had accepted the Chargers job, for which he had already interviewed. So obviously a scheduled Eagles interview for later that week (according to Tom Pelissero) never took place.
No doubt, the LAC job was the best of the bunch. They had a franchise quarterback and some good talent on that roster. Jacksonville wasn’t a bad gig either because of their draft pick situation, with Trevor Lawrence sitting there at #1 overall. The other openings were Eagles, Jets, Falcons, Lions, and Texans.