What Winning Team?

This whole Mike Patterson saga is a travesty. From Les Bowen:

"Winning teams don't do this to their classiest players," [Patterson's agent Peter] Schaffer said Wednesday... 
Schaffer said general manager Howie Roseman's reasoning was, "Well, what did we get out of him this year?" Schaffer said he asked Roseman what he got out of quarterback Michael Vick, scheduled to make $12.5 million this year, or recently released defensive end Jason Babin, who carried a $5 million base salary number.
Asked to respond, the Eagles issued the following statement: "Our number one priority is to get Mike Patterson well enough to get back on the football field. He has worked hard this year to get back and he has our full support as an organization."

It's Nice To Be Wanted

Les Bowen:

This is not 1999. Back then, the Eagles' job was not considered attractive, even though the Birds had the second overall pick in that year's draft, mainly because the team was playing and practicing in dilapidated Veterans Stadium, a tough sell to free agents and not a great setup for financial success. In 2012, the Eagles have first-class facilities, a stable, passionate fan base, and a history of recent success.
Lurie, whatever fans think of him, is not a Jerry Jones-level meddler or a guy who might be looking to move the franchise to Los Angeles because he can't sell tickets. He's a solid owner who has shown he's willing to spend money on coaches and players; when Andy Reid needed him to open up the checkbook to entice Jim Washburn and Howard Mudd here, Lurie did that. (Yes, I'm aware those hirings haven't turned out well. The point is, when the head coach has wanted to spend money, Lurie has spent it.)
It's true that if Nick Foles isn't any better than he looked in Washington Sunday, the Eagles are going  to have to draft a franchise quarterback, and that's a daunting task. It's also true that teams with head coaching openings tend not to have franchise quarterbacks sitting around. Funny how that works. It's almost like there might be some sort of connection there.

100 percent agree. Even without a franchise QB, the Eagles job should be the top destination for any free agent coach. 

Read Between the Lines

In the midst of yet another edition of Linebacker Musical Chairs, Juan Castillo sounded off on how DeMeco Ryans fits into the group, per Les Bowen:

I think what DeMeco Ryans has added is, Meco has that experience ... Now, all of a sudden, the kids see how they're supposed to watch tape, how they're supposed to act on the field. Meco's a no-nonsense type guy, and a guy who's been in the league and done it ... You take that, mixed with athletic kids, athletic guys, now you have a good group," Castillo said Monday.

Don't get me wrong, Ryans is still a huge upgrade over the clowns in 2011. But there's a reason Castillo calls him "no-nonsense" and the rest of the linebackers "athletic." Just saying.

Still Andyworld, Until It's Not

Les Bowen wants to know whether, in the absence of Joe Banner, the Eagles are dealing with “Howieworld” or “Andyworld.”

Remember, Jeffrey Lurie, in his anguished postseason address, sounded almost ready to fire Reid, but when reporters asked about Roseman — who certainly had a lot to do with all the silly Ronnie Brown and Steve Smith-type signings last summer, not to mention some poor draft decisions — Lurie got indignant. He made it clear that Roseman was not in any sort of trouble.

That’s why I kinda think it might be Howieworld. And I’d love to know what Howie really thinks of Reid.

But it’s more complicated than that. I don’t think that Roseman, unlike Banner, has the power to fire Reid. Based on the constant references to Reid’s final say on all football matters, he clearly has the upper hand on his young colleague when they disagree. Lurie knows that if he wants Reid gone, he has to do the deed himself.

In that sense, the Eagles are still Andyworld — his word is still law at NovaCare. Where things get interesting is in the future. Reid has the power now, but he’s also in a more precarious position than Roseman. If the 2012 season goes poorly, there’s little chance he returns. Roseman, meanwhile, is sitting pretty. He’s not as powerful as Reid right now, but all it would take is another losing season and he’s the man in charge, getting ready to pick a coach of his own.

When Conspiracy Theories Trump the Party Line

Joe Banner

You can label the Andy Reid-Joe Banner power struggle an unfounded conspiracy theory. And you can buy the general storyline presented for Banner leaving. But you have to admit that there are serious holes in that party line.

According to Jeff McLane’s report, which might as well be the official press release, Banner approached Jeff Lurie a year ago about a succession plan. Why would he want to leave the Eagles, a team he built for the better part of the last two decades, a team owned by his childhood friend and in which he was the unquestioned CEO?

The official line is that he wants to “get involved with the world of buying and selling a sports team with the possibility of becoming part of a group that buys a team.” Geoff Mosher got Banner on the phone and the former team president said that he has been less involved over the last few years:

“I spend a lot of my time right now managing people that report to me and a modest amount of time doing things myself. More passive role than this same job was not long ago. I wanna be so busy I don’t have time to breathe. That’s my personality.”

Sorry, but I just don’t buy it. Less than ten months ago, Banner was at the forefront of the Eagles efforts to sign one of the most heralded free agent classes in modern memory. You can’t listen to this interview with Mike Florio and tell me that Banner was not personally involved in every aspect of those decisions and negotiations. “More passive role”? I don’t think so.

The changes clearly began this offseason, as Les Bowen wrote and McLane papered over. The extensions for longtime Eagles, the new willingness to talk with DeSean Jackson, the relatively quick deal struck with LeSean McCoy — all of it was done with Banner completely unseen. Howie Roseman became the point person for negotiations and Reid took an unprecedented, larger role.

Drew Rosenhaus’s comments about his negotiations over Evan Mathis, Jackson, and McCoy set a lot of the Banner talk in motion, and Paul Domowitch went back to him today in a great story:

“Howie really handled exclusively the negotiations for DeSean and Evan and LeSean,” Rosenhaus said. “Joe wasn’t directly involved in any of those discussions from the start of the offseason. I actually negotiated (undrafted free agent safety) Phillip Thomas’s contract with Joe. I remember him calling and joking about the fact that he wanted to work on at least one deal with me this offseason.”

“We struggled up to this offseason really to get the club to work on an extension with DeSean,” Rosenhaus said. “The team really wasn’t aggressive as it related to DeSean’s negotiations until this offseason. I don’t know if there was a power struggle or not. There’s no way for me to know that. But I do know that things changed in terms of the Eagles’ approach to DeSean after the season.”

Those comments suggest that Banner has been marginalized since the end of the disastrous 2011 season, a season for which he was directly responsible for many of the controversial decisions — free agency splurge, stonewalling DeSean, angering Asante Samuel (basically everything up to Juan Castillo). You can connect the dots.

Domo reads the tea leaves and argues that Reid wanted Jackson extended and blamed much of last season’s locker room troubles on Banner’s inaction on that front. Les’s piece today takes a slightly different route, arguing that Lurie “was genuinely at his wits’ end over the Eagles’ sour image in Philadelphia, the inability to connect with the fan on the street.” His solution was to isolate Banner and loosen up Reid.

Either theory makes more sense than Banner’s self-proclaimed reasoning. If he had dropped out of football to pursue his philanthropic interests, one might understand. But if you want to stay in football, you don’t leave that job willingly — especially without a new, seemingly better position already lined up.

I’m sure it was painful for Lurie to take the reigns away from his friend, but that’s the kind of decision he has to make as an owner. And by delaying the announcement and concocting an elaborate and not-entirely-convincing exit story, Lurie gives Banner as gracious a departure as he can manage. The new “Special Advisor to the Owner” even has a fall-back job at NovaCare for as long as he needs.

We will never know the full truth, but let’s not be naive. There’s the official story, and then there are the explanations that actually make sense.

Photo from the Philadelphia Eagles.

A Changed Attitude in the Eagles Front Office

Andy Reid

In the aftermath of the relatively quick and painless contract agreement with LeSean McCoy last week, the scuttlebutt has centered on the changes in the Eagles front office. All the key figures remain the same, but Joe Banner was nowhere to be found and words during and after the press conference suggested that Andy Reid had an increased role in the negotiations.

So what, exactly, has changed? For that, we have opposing takes from rivals/colleagues Les Bowen and Jeff McLane. Bowen takes the angle that Banner is increasingly isolated from the public eye and, seemingly, negotiations. This marks a relatively large change in the organization. McLane sees it differently:

Most of the changes within the front office have centered on public relations and can be summed up as such: Andy Reid has been more accommodating, Howie Roseman has been nudged into the spotlight, and Joe Banner has taken a step back behind the curtain.

The key thing that McLane omits (or, I suspect, willfully ignores) in his contrarian analysis is that changing the public perception and the outward attitude is a change in strategy. Of course we’re not talking about a radical front office change of direction — it’s all the same guys at NovaCare, after all. But the idea that Howie Roseman is handling negotiations because he’s less of an abrasive jerk at the table means something. Reid’s presence may be a facade placed on top of the same front office, but if it changed how McCoy, Roseman, and Drew Rosenhaus interacted, that matters.

Whether Reid and Banner purposely created or merely fell into their good cop/bad cop roles, it was obvious that they believed it worked. I expect that the combination of DeSean Jackson’s sulking and Asante Samuel railing against the guys upstairs prompted a reevaluation of that strategy. After such an awful season, revisions were required both on the field and in the front office — a marginalization of Banner and alignment of Reid’s player-friendly attitude with Howie Roseman’s less intimidating demeanor serves that goal.

The results, despite what McLane says, haven’t been the same:

That’s been the blueprint for years. Last year’s free-agent frenzy wasn’t the first time the Eagles spent freely. This year’s taking care of their own wasn’t the first time they rewarded their best loyal charges.

That’s accurate in general. But in recent years the Eagles have often seemed disinterested in renegotiating veteran contracts (Cole, Herremans) or extending young stars (Jackson, McCoy). And last season’s free agent splurge was especially out of character. The team is always in the market for top players, but rarely have they gone out and bought multiple veteran starters. Nor did the front office pretend that anything was business as usual with that last training camp.

Making extensions a priority this year, even for players for whom they could have forced to play for their current deals, shows a re-focused strategy that stems from the re-organization at the top. It’s only a change in attitude, but that more positive demeanor makes a difference. Just sticking with McCoy, Bowen is correct in his counterfactual Banner-led negotiations. Things probably wouldn’t have gone quite so smoothly:

They could have stuck to their guns on the fact that Houston’s Arian Foster, whose deal proved to be the benchmark, had negotiated that contract as a restricted free agent, a crucial difference. They could have made McCoy choose between either signing a contract that was a solid financial notch below Foster or risking injury this season, to possibly end up being franchised, with no long-term commitment at all. They could have pressed their advantage a lot harder.

Jackson looked like he was headed for a Jeremiah Trotter-esque walk out of town. Cole might have grown as unhappy as his former teammate Sheldon Brown. And McCoy seemed destined for a classic Brian Westbrook holdout. That none of those things came to pass speaks to a positive change within the organization. You can try to hide it behind a “business as usual” or “just public relations” tagline, but the results say otherwise.

Photo from Getty.