Jeffrey Lurie Faces Biggest Test With Threat of Chip Kelly Alienation

Back in late November, when the Eagles appeared to be a lock to make the playoffs, I wrote an article reacting to a report from Tim McManus of Birds 24/7 that suggested that the relationship between Eagles Head-Coach Chip Kelly and General Manager Howie Roseman had ‘cooled’. I didn’t overreact to the report–although from the reaction of some commentors you would have thought that I did–I simply said that if things came down to choosing between Chip Kelly and Howie Roseman, Chip was the easy choice for who would stay. It was a hypothetical then, but it appears to be becoming a very real problem for Jeffrey Lurie now.

Besides Weednesday being New Year’s Eve, it was simply supposed to be the two-year anniversary of the Eagles officially ending the Andy Reid era. Instead, it turned into a day that may ultimately turn out to be the day that it became very apparent that something had to give in the front-office.

Wednesday, the Eagles announced that they were parting ways with Vice President of Player Personnel Tom Gamble. Gamble, who by most accounts was highly coveted by Chip Kelly when he joined forces with Roseman prior to the 2013 season. Kelly, according to CSN Philly’s Reuben Frank, made Gamble a must-have when he signed on to become the team’s Head-Coach.

"Gamble was Chip Kelly’s guy. Kelly made it clear to the Eagles when they were pursuing him for their head coaching job after the 2012 season that he wanted a pure football guy he was comfortable with in the front office, and Gamble, whom he had known for years, was at the absolute top of his list."

According to Frank, Kelly didn’t necessarily not respect Roseman, but he viewed him as someone that was a cap and numbers guy, rather than an organization’s lead talent evaluator.

It’s fair to wonder whether two seasons ago Roseman was fine with Kelly looking-down on his ability to evaluate talent, figuring that he could prove himself to the former Oregon coach as the two worked together. Given Kelly’s post-season assessment of Roseman, he doesn’t appear to have done that in his nearly two years of working with Kelly.

Via NJ.com’s Mark Eckel 

"On Monday, Kelly called Gamble “an outstanding football man” and said he did a “great job.” During that same press conference, Kelly said Roseman was good at handling the salary cap.According to people inside the organization those quotes “infuriated” Roseman. The general manager — who has never been a scout, played the game or coached — has worked to overcome the image of being solely a salary-cap guy."

That report came shortly after the Eagles ‘parted ways’ Tom Gamble, which reportedly was more of a firing than a mutual decision to move on. Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Daily News says that Gamble all but had his seat-belt buckled for him on the way out of the Novacare Complex.

In the same NJ.com story, an unnamed league executive had this to say about Kelly’s thoughts on Gamble’s exit.

"“There is no way Chip Kelly is happy about this,” said an NFL personnel executive with another team who knows Gamble. “What the (heck) is going on there? How does Tom lose out in that battle? That place is dysfunctional.”"

Dysfunctional. That’s always good. For all the talk of “culture” surrounding Chip Kelly, this doesn’t seem to fit that ideal. Unfortunately for Kelly, he does not appear to have to ability to just cut Roseman loose in what he would perceive to be a culture-benefiting move, the way he seemingly did with DeSean Jackson last off-season.

So amid reports that Lurie views Roseman as a ‘messiah’ (have to love the terminology that sources use), this one thing has become clear.

In many senses, the idea of Howie having more player personnel power than Chip should be comforting. When given the reigns last year, Kelly (and Gamble?) produced a draft that had one serious impact rookie in Jordan Matthews. Beau Allen was a nice depth piece, and a good value in the seventh round. Marcus Smith looks like a miserable pick, Josh Huff struggled to hold onto the ball in his rookie season, and it took until late in the season for virtually anyone else to get on the field. Jaylen Watkins played at the end of the year, but what impact he will have on the team in the long-run remains to be seen.

It’s unclear exactly who made the pickups of Cody Parkey and Trey Burton, but those two did make serious impacts in their rookie seasons. Neither were drafted by any team, but Parkey was acquired in a preseason trade and Burton was an undrafted free-agent who stared on special teams. Still, the lack of great depth in this year’s draft was frustrating.

Roseman, on the other hand, will always have the 2012 draft as his meal-ticket. The draft produced Pro-Bowl caliber Defensive-Tackle Fletcher Cox, Pro-Bowl caliber Linebacker Mychal Kendricks, 2013 Pro-Bowl MVP Nick Foles, impressive nickel corner Brandon Boykin and even Bryce Brown in the seventh-round, who the Eagles turned into a fourth-round pick during last year’s draft. The Eagles had an impressive 2013 draft as well, which was likely led by Roseman with the assistance of Kelly and Gamble, but it’s difficult to accurately distribute credit for that draft. The one draft that we know Roseman was in charge of, 2012, was one of the best draft classes in team history.

That said, if Kelly and Gamble were in charge of free-agency/trades last off-season, they did hit on some things. As mentioned, they hit on Burton and Parkey. They hit, at least relatively, on Malcolm Jenkins. It doesn’t take a genius to trade a fifth-round pick for Darren Sproles, but they hit a homerun on that. The emphasis on special-teams was evident in more than just Sproles, Burton and Parkey, but also by the impact that Chris Maragos had on the team this year.

Jeffrey Lurie wanted things to be ‘streamlined’ through him. Now his streamlining may determine who wins the ultimate power-struggle between Chip Kelly and Howie Roseman. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey G. Pittenger-USA TODAY Sports

But then there was the whole DeSean Jackson thing. For better or for worse, Kelly decided that DeSean Jackson would not return in 2014. Instead of going to Roseman and trying to have him get some sort of compensation for a Pro-Bowl receiver, Kelly showed his cards, and by the time Roseman was handed Jackson to trade, his value was non-existent.

Kelly also elected to give Riley Cooper an extension to be the number two receiver, which judging by Pro Football Focus ranking him the worst starting receiver in the NFL in 2014, wasn’t smart. But, he did re-sign Jeremy Maclin, who had a career year in his system.

The 2014 off-season was a mixed-bag, with extremes suggesting that Kelly and Gamble were both successful and unsuccessful in trades and free-agency.

It has become as difficult to evaluate who gets credit for what in the front-office, as it has for Jeffrey Lurie to decide who gets what power in the front-office.

The best scenario appears to be some combination of the two (Kelly and Roseman) having control over player personnel, but it’s hard to imagine that successfully occurring given the lack of chemistry (respect?) between the two.

So Jeffrey Lurie, who said upon firing Andy Reid that all organizational moves would be run by him first, will be tested now more than perhaps any time in his 20 plus seasons as owner of the team. There doesn’t appear to be a correct answer about where the Eagles go from here, but given what just transpired with the 49ers essentially losing a season due to a head-coach/front office battle, it seems safe to assume that Lurie can just bank on things figuring themselves out.

It’s easy for one to say that the Eagles can find a new General Manager, but can’t find a new Chip Kelly, but there is more to it than that. Chip can’t have absolute control of the entire organization. This isn’t college. It’s unrealistic to think that he can’t have any control, given the uniqueness of his system, but he can’t be the be-all, end-all. That didn’t work when Andy Reid tried to do it, it hasn’t worked for nearly any coaches across the league who have tried to do it, and judging by last off-season, Chip probably wouldn’t be the exception to that.

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Howie can’t be the singular man in power either. For as nice as his 2012 draft was, he’s been in the organization for some poor drafts, we know very little about him as a free-agent/trade evaluator, and he has been part of his fair share of poor trades/signings, even if they weren’t his individual doing.

He also has developed, fairly or unfairly, a poor reputation around the league. I don’t buy the idea that just because you didn’t play/coach/scout in the league that you can’t be a ‘football guy’, but you do face an uphill battle. You certainly can’t become someone that is unwilling to work with others, which kind of feels like what Roseman has become.

The final answer might be that both are flawed. Chip needs to make certain game-day adjustments, but he is a hell of a football coach. I’m not even sure if there are five people on the planet that I would rather have coach the Eagles than Kelly. But that doesn’t mean he should have full-control over personnel.

Roseman might be better at dealing with personnel than Kelly, but is it worth keeping him if it could alienate Chip?

If both remain in the organization, they need to start checking their egos and set aside personal differences. The Eagles aren’t that far away, but they need to really hit the nail on the head the next few offseasons for a Superbowl dream to become a real thing. And if that can’t be done with these two, then one of them has to be let go of.

Again, it would seem that Jeffrey Lurie should side with Chip Kelly, but Kelly doesn’t have the same leverage he had a year ago when the city was ready to canonize him. If a change was made at General Manager, Kelly needs to accept the fact that he won’t have the most power in every single organizational decision. That’s part of the NFL deal–you get to go shop for the groceries with your parents (the GM), but you only determine so much about what goes in the cart.

It may end up becoming clear that Chip wants to much to run a successful NFL team. You can be a great game-day coach that demands too much power that you can’t handle, ultimately making it not worth having you around. But Chip, unless he leaves on his own accord, isn’t going anywhere right now.

That said, Lurie is more than loyal to Howie Roseman, making it unlikely that he moves on from Roseman either. He certainly has a ton of thinking to do about where his team goes from here, though. He has a very good NFL head-coach who has turned around what was a raging dumpster-fire on the field two years ago, largely in part to players that he inherited. How he acts at this moment, may define his ownership tenure with the Eagles.

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