Is Howie Roseman Involved with the Eagles' Game Planning?
Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon spoke to the media on Tuesday, and while answering a rather straightforward question about in-game deviation from the weekly plan, dropped an interesting Howie Roseman reference that Birds fans and media picked up on.
Here’s the entire exchange, my emphasis in bold:
Q. When it comes to rotational positions, so not just D-tackle, D-end, is that sort of game planned in, that rotation? How much room is it to change in game with you and Defensive Line Coach Tracy Rocker? (John McMullen)
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, like we talked about I think last year, I think it’s a good question. We set up the game plan a certain way and say, ‘Hey, we want to come out of the game kind of looking like this,’ and we do that with the head coach and with [Eagles Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie [Roseman]. But then there is always room for, as you go through the game, how the game goes. You don’t know how it’s going to unfold. You don’t know that you’re going to be up however many points in the third quarter or whatever and you don’t know how many points you’re going to be down. We try to keep that within reason. We set up a game plan and have a game plan for that, but then that can adjust moving forward. That’s why you guys will see all those guys’ snaps — whoever plays for us we feel good about, but those snaps will fluctuate through the year as the year goes within certain games because of how games are played.
It’s interesting, but vague. Does Roseman sit there in the game plan meetings sipping coffee and not saying anything? Does he take notes? Is he actively involved? Does he tell the coaches outright, “hey, you must play this guy X amount of snaps?”
Those are the questions to ask. It’s the same thing with Jeffrey Lurie and his involvement in personnel. What is the EXTENT of his influence? We have independent reporting suggesting he’s been more involved than most people thought, but the scribes who go down to the press conferences will be probably follow up with Nick Sirianni this week, or ask Gannon about the Howie topic when he talks again next week.
The crux of the matter is whether or not the GM (and owner) are letting the coaches coach, or whether they’re trying to get involved where they shouldn’t be. It’s always a very fascinating topic, and one where legit information is hard to come by.