April 30, 2022 • 49 mins
Thomas follows his intriguing interview with John Lynch and head to Philadelphia to chat with GM and friend Howie Roseman of the Eagles. Thomas and Howie discuss the Coach GM dynamic and Howie talks about his incredible opportunity to learn from multiple sports organizations.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Ariel Custom Baum and I am the
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(00:21):
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donating to this amazing initiative at fair meals dot org.
Forward slash donate. Okay, look, I mean what a great
visit with John Lynch, hanging out in San Francisco with
(00:43):
such a highly regarded individual, not only on the field
as a player, as a general manager, but as a person.
Like I said, great treat to spend time with him.
I've had so much great feedback after talking to him
about people who are interested in listening to his inside
it's great visit. So thank you so much, John Lynch.
We're on our way up to Philadelphia, all the way
(01:06):
across the country to meet with Howie Roseman. Welcome to
the GM journey with Thomas dimitrof. This is a guy
who has run the gamut. I mean he is. He
is a very big brain, smart guy with a really
good insight and a and an approach, a very confident
approach to him. He and I get along really, really
(01:26):
well and, as I mentioned, we're very competitive with each other.
Over the years he's had an opportunity to work with
some great head coaches. He's also worked with some head
coaches who have been a challenge for him. You know,
we we watch Howie and we watch how he navigates
through a really tough community, really football centric community, in Philly.
This guy is resilient. Check it out. You'll be really
(01:47):
impressed with what how he has to say. All Right,
PHILADELPHIA PA with the GM on the Philadelphia Eagles. Howie Roseman,
thanks for joining me. Great see brother. Well, I pulled
led up and this the first time I've ever been here.
At you guys kicked our asses over so many years
when I was with Atlanta. Look at this place. You know,
it's funny you say that because I remember texting you
(02:11):
many times off on the bus after we were down
in Atlanta and getting our asking, you know, and being
like great job, and I think of the game where
we played the second game of the year and it
was two thousand and eleven or two thousand eleven. Yeah,
and Mike got hurt. My Kapta came in and I
(02:33):
remember Um d R C was covering Julio down the
sideline and I don't know, I'll never forget that. Like
you heard, I watched the REPLAN and here Alan Michael's
going like how are you going to stop this defense?
I got this unbelievable defensive line. We had D R C,
we had a Sante who you had namdi Um and
that was like the last moment of that season that
(02:54):
was actually fun. And then we end up like going
eight and eight and not winning, but a lot, a
lot of battles and a lot of respect, like we've
done this together for so long, and just talking about things.
So I'm glad you're in Philly because I feel like
we don't get a chance to be on each other's
turf all up here we are finally to go out
and have some great dinner tonight we're here. I mean,
I just I have so many questions. I woke up
(03:14):
this morning. I've had a great month and a half
traveling around the country, visiting with all of our contemporaries
and it's been so great to rekindle some friendships again.
We're always so busy right we get on the phone,
we're talking about a trade, we're rushing off talking about
this or that. We maybe see each other at the
owners meetings, at least we used to. Right now we're
not going to. I'm kind of in in that limbo time.
(03:37):
But one of the reasons that I really wanted to
do this again is connect talk football professionally developed and uh,
you know, capture some of this, because I think what
you have to offer, uh, like a lot of other
general managers in this league, I think is huge and
I think too often general managers in our league are,
I don't know, I feel at times a little bit
(03:57):
marginalized where they shouldn't be. And I understand head coaches
at the front end of it not baseball, right, it's
it's not basketball, and the head coaches are so important,
but at the same time, I think the other thing
is that you know a lot of other sports. We
talked to you, and I do this all the time,
we talked to a lot of GMS and other sports
and they always say like I feel like NFL GMS
(04:18):
eat their own right, like guys get fired in baseball
or basketball and they immediately get picked up by their
boys right and they get another job. And I think,
like people may think that, like we're so competitive that
we don't have these relationships. We don't pick up the
phone and say, what are you thinking about this and
what are you think about that? And I always appreciated
that I could do that with you about anything. Like
I could call you and say, what are you thinking
and Um, and we had that with each other. So
(04:41):
I missed that and I'm glad we get a chance
to do that. That's it's so important. I was going
to lead in today's questions and we're spending, because I
knew we would spend. Were love that. I'm not sure.
I'm not sure I ever got diagnosed with a D D,
but I definitely have it right. Well, you wear it well. Right, yeah,
you wear it well. So I look at this and
I was thinking again coming in here to Philly to
to spend some time with you, and I thought you're
(05:04):
one of the most respected and one of the most
accomplished general managers in our league right now. You've done
some wonderful things. You've won some big games. You want
a super bowl. You've won conference championships. You want executive
of the year. You've you know, you've you've set yourself
in your line for for many years to come and very,
very well respected. You're living the proverbial dream. And I
(05:27):
look back on an article recently when you men mentioned, uh,
you made mention that you literally wanted to be a
GM at what age? Yeah, so, Um, it was funny
because I knew what I wanted to do, like as
young as eight years old, and I want to play
quarterback in the national football league. But you know, you
see these guys, man, it is hard. I definitely didn't
have the genetic pool that you need to play in
(05:48):
the national football league, but I had this advantage of
knowing what direction I wanted to go in, when it's
hard to do this. And we also got in at
a different time, like there was no way to connect
like you do now. You can't send an email, send
a text like you. You had to have the drive
in the termination to kind of go in that direction,
and so, Um, you know, just very fortunate. Got An
(06:10):
opportunity and look like you know, you haven't been with
many franchises, right and I've been with one like that.
This you ask, I know when this building was built.
You know, to be here and in this market and
the passion this market has for as long as I have,
and you know obviously you have to have some success,
but it's also humbling. I mean you talk about it
and make the playoffs three years in a row, win
the Super Bowl and then last year I have the
(06:32):
year that we have and, you know, win four games
and you kind of anytime you think you arrive in
this business, you get your ass kicked. You have such
a good grasp of that. We talked about it. We're
on the phone and we're flying through and we fire
off some questions and some some you know, comical remarks
and then we move on and we come back and again.
I value that a great deal. You. You have this
(06:55):
way of being able to communicate with the people around you.
Your very clear and candid. You take care of a
lot of people over the years. That is one of
the things that is beyond admirable. When people talk about
Howie Roseman, you've people have been fired and you've brought
him back. You you have helped people out in a
lot of different ways and you have a really good
(07:15):
grasp of understanding the importance of people to people and
and the people to people skills that you have, again,
is beyond admirable. Where does that come from? Yeah, I
think that the most important thing is loyalty, right, and
when you find good people and being loyal to them,
but not only that, but taking care of them and
their families. Like, Um, we've talked about this. We have
(07:36):
this unique opportunity in these roles to be able to
take care of people. Now, obviously that starts with ownership,
you know, and we have an unbelievable owner in Jeffrey
lury and what he wants to do and the people
around him. We've been around him for a long time,
so it starts with him. But I view that as
like the best part of the job is being able
to take care of people and their families when they're
doing a good job. and Um, Philly is an unbelievably
(07:59):
passionate mark good. I mean football here is king and
because of that it's great when you win and it's
hard when you lose and the expectations are really high.
And not only do I get to feel that, but
the people who work for the Eagles get to feel
that and they know that when they're taking their kids
to a football game or a baseball game just then playing,
they're gonna go what's going on with the EGELS, you know,
(08:21):
like why? And then when things are good, like that's awesome.
So everyone here feels that. And so what can you do?
You can have high standards and high have high expectations
because we have an unbelievable talented staff, but you can
also take care of them and make sure that they
understand because we're in a big market, because we're in
a football crazy town, they should be compensated well too.
(08:41):
So I'm gonna ask you a tough question and a
humbling question. If I were to ask you what differentiates
Howie Roseman from other GMS in this league, Humbly speaking,
of course, what would it be? Well, one, I've been
privileged to have the experience you know, and experience is important.
I know that Um, all of us look for the
(09:02):
newest and brightest and best, and that's important too, but
the more you do your job, the better you get
at it. Um, and then I think it's being surrounded
by really good people, really strong people, and and sometimes,
you know, you hire staff and you go well, is
this guy and we see it in this league all
the time. You know, a couple of our friends have
experienced it. You know I've experienced it, where you you
(09:23):
hire really good people and then they want to take
you over. You know. So are you really encouraged to
hire the best and the brightest because you're worried about
protecting your turf? But Um, I've been so fortunate to
be around great people and you know, we've talked about
our owner. Um, I came into the league with a
president team, Joe Boundary, brilliant, understood how to build teams,
(09:43):
how to build organizations. And then, you know, a hall
of fame coach. You know, maybe, Um, you put him
wherever you want to put him in the top five,
but the top five coach and Andy Reid, who, Um,
was the best leader you could ever be around, and
not only from the perspective of building a football team
and in front of the team, which he's outstanding, but
also in the building and hiring staffs and building a
(10:05):
football team and and he loved the art of team building.
He loves spending time with Ron Wolf who, you know,
both of us admire obviously a great deal, and one
of the role models for general managers in the National
Football League, and so he learned all those lessons through
Ron and then he'd impart them to all of us.
and Um, one coming up. We went to a super
bowl in two thousand and four and we had eight
(10:27):
guys on that staff who ended up being GMS or
Vice Presidents of player personnel, and so, you know, we
had this opportunity, including want to just want a super bowl, right,
Jason Um, and so we had the opportunity. It was
like a think tank, like, I don't know, I haven't
worked anywhere else, you know, I've only worked in football,
but I gotta think that that's like what goes on
at Google or facebook, like you have these freaking brilliant
young people who all you can see like they're going places,
(10:50):
like they're going to be at a high level, but
at the same time, like you're sharing ideas and you're competitive,
just like you're playing one on one basketball with them, um,
and I feel just being around that environment and then
trying to pay that forward and hire really good people.
And one of the things I'm most proud of is,
you know, the amount of GM's we've had. It come
out of here and I know you spent some time
with them over the last couple of weeks. Well, you again.
(11:13):
You've had an opportunity to be around some great football minds,
great leaders, great coaches that you just mentioned with Andy
Reid and other coaches. Some were position coaches and coordinators.
It's really interesting to take that all in. Having been
in this league for as long as you have been,
you understand the importance of that relationship between GM and
head coach. It's vital. You cannot survive you cannot thrive,
(11:36):
and that's say. That said you, at times it can
be a little rocky, other times it can be smoothed.
So if I first asked you who was the most
influential leader, you would say Andy. And a football no
doubt about it. Okay, so your relationship with Andy was
unbelievable at so many levels. You learned so much. If
if I were to ask you, or if a group
(11:57):
of owners were to humbly ask you, how do you
ideally put together a head coach general manager relationship and
basically put together the top end of the football operations
of the NFL team, what would you say? Yeah, I'd say.
The first thing is I think that what happens is,
you know, everyone, like the Kumbaya stuff, gets a little
(12:19):
bit overplayed, right, because at the end of the day,
if you have two people who just go yeah, what
you say, what you say, I mean there has to
be a little give and take in that relationship because
at the end of the day they're very different jobs, right,
like when you're a general manager in the National Football League,
you have to build for now and you also have
to protect the future. Like that is your job. Your
(12:40):
job is to make sure you're not just going one
year and then you're out. You have to build it
and you have an obligation to the organization, to the ownership,
to the fans, to make sure that you're trying to
compete for a long period of time now again, like
that doesn't mean that you're in the super bowl every
year because it's too hard. That doesn't mean that you
make the playoffs every year because it's really hard. Whereas
you're a coach, you're looking at now, how am I
(13:02):
going to win this game? How am I going to
make the playoffs this year? How am I gonna win
the Super Bowl this year? And that's fair. So if
you think about those two roles, there has to be
a little give and take. There has to be a
little bit of a dichotomy between those two jobs, and
so I think as long as there's respect and understands,
like you know, it's gonna come down at roster cuts,
(13:23):
it's gonna come down in free agent signs, it's gonna
come down in the draft, where not everything, from our perspective,
is going to be about this season and from their
perspective we respect that they have to win because they're
under the gun for that season, but we're also trying
to help them over the long term so that they
can spend a lot of time in Philadelphia. Right. You know,
coach read was here fourteen years and to do that
(13:45):
you need to compete over a long period of time
and to build the team and to and to build
the team you may have to take a small step
back at a certain area to take two steps form. Yeah,
head coaches and GM's vital that there's communication and relationship.
There's gonna be the high times, there's gonna be the
low times. No doubt you on the other side have
had a very challenging relationship with a head coach at
(14:07):
one time, and chip Kelly called the way it is.
There was a lot of talk about it, without getting
into a ton of detail on it. Very curious. What
was the main lesson you learned from that GM head
coaching relationship? Well, one I do think that there are
very few people in this world who can handle both jobs.
I mean the jobs are just they're too big for
(14:30):
one person to handle. and Um, you know, coach read
do that. He had it here and I remember when
he left he said, you know, when you're meeting with
the equipment guy or when you're meeting with the video
guy and talking about staffing and you're talking about some
of the struggles they're dealing with on a day to
day basis and you're still trying to coach the team,
you only have a little amount of time in a
(14:51):
day to do that. So you know it's hard to
run the building. Now, obviously you know. You talk about
another one of the greatest all time, Bill Belichi, get
his ability to do it and and Andy did at
a high level. Went to five championship games with Co
treat so you could do it, but it's really hard
and so I think that the separation of powers work.
So to go to the original question, I'm talking to
(15:13):
an owner what would the separation of powers makes sense
because you want to have two really strong people doing
their job at a really high level and that allows
you to stay in your air of expertise but at
the same time also being able to communicate effectively. And
I think when I think about it, you know, maybe
what I did and I look at myself in that situation,
(15:35):
you know maybe I took for granted because I was
with someone for so long, with coach read, and that
it was just it was easy. He was flowing like
I knew him before I was married and had kids,
and you know, literally we were with each other through
through births and deaths and marriages and life. So sometimes
maybe you take that relationship because it's so easy, because
(15:56):
you're with someone for so long. Doesn't mean we didn't
have challenges, but you kind of take it for granted
and then you go all right, well, you have to
build that from scratch with with a new head coach,
and so it doesn't just flow like that. Like any relationship,
you have to really work at it and spend time
and build trust. I think that's one of the things
that I took out of that is that it's really
(16:17):
important to have that and then, at the same time,
like you know, making sure that the communication is going
person to person, man to man, I'd eye, and that
you're not having delegance. You know you're not having well,
you know you're really close with this guy, so maybe
you talked to this guy and then I talked to
that guy. That doesn't work, you know, and and you
have to have those hard conversations and as long as
(16:39):
there's mutual respect, those hard conversations can come out in
a good place. So I'm curious, having gotten fired in
October and in my own contemplative area of my life
right now and and moving around thinking a lot during
that time when chip Kelly was here and you were adjusted,
and I mean it is a correct and saying, moved
up in a way a little bit during that time.
(17:00):
Was that? Were you traveling around the country in the world?
Were you spending time professionally developing during that time? Yeah,
and I think it's funny that you talk about what
you're doing because you know, Um, when that happened with
coach Kelly and I could see the writing on the wall.
And to be fair, we had won Um twenty games
and two years together and and it's hard to find coaches.
(17:21):
You know, it's hard to find hard to find GMS,
but it's hard to find coaches. And so I understood
where Jeffrey was coming from and, Um, I had some
time left on my contract and, Um, I talked to
him and I said, you know, I really I came
into the NFL and all I was trying to do
was keep moving forward, right. And so what does that mean? Right,
I tried. I started doing cap and then I went
(17:43):
to pro scouting and then I went to college scouting
and then I put it all together and I was
a really young GM and I never really had a
moment because when you're in these jobs you can relate
to it. Like I wake up in the morning, I'm
thinking about the team, I go to bed to night,
I'm thinking about the team. Right, like it's uh, when
all these guys leaving, they get GM jobs and they say,
what's the biggest difference between the job I have now
(18:04):
and the job I'm going into? And I said you
wake up in the morning with a not in your stomach,
you go to bed in a not in your stomach
and you just you know that there's gonna be an issue.
You'RE gonna have to deal with every single day and
you just prepare someone for that, you know, like that.
You don't, and when things are going good and you
take your foot off the gas, get your ass kicked.
And so I think for me it was like, you know,
(18:25):
I would love to do what these coaches did, which is,
you know, you see these these coaches who get let
go and they go around and and they go to
other UH, they go to college, they go to other
NFL teams and they learn and they kind of work
on themselves and I felt like there weren't a lot
of people. Maybe there were, but there weren't a lot
of people who are doing what you're doing now. And
(18:45):
so I went to Jeffrey and I said, Hey, this
is what I would like to do. You know, I
knew this was coming. This is what I like to do,
and he said I think it would be great. And
so I got this opportunity and I really feel like
it was the best thing professionally that ever happened to me,
because I an opportunity to step back, I got an
opportunity to work on a lot of my deficiencies and,
even more so, I got a freaking masters in running sports. Teams.
(19:10):
Really I didn't do it thinking like Hey, I'm gonna
come back in the year and I'm gonna go get
another opportunity. I did it because I felt like it
was such a great opportunity personally and professionally to be
able to do that. So let's talk about building staffs.
Let's talk about the importance of a stellar coaching staff,
and I'm not just saying the head coach, of course,
(19:30):
number one, most important. I'm talking about the coordinators and
I'm talking about the assistant coaches. I am convinced over
the years, the way that you're going to survive, the
way that you're going to win super bowls and championships
is to make sure that staff is very, very sound
at all levels. No doubt. What is your stance on staffs,
building the staff? How involved are you in the construction
(19:53):
of your coaching staff and how involved is your owner?
So I you talk about it, it's like your team, right,
like you, you're not gonna be you don't have pro
bowl players at every position. Right. It's allocation of resources.
We all basically have the same number draft picks, salary,
cap money, all that stuff. So you'RE gonna have to
pick where you want allocate resources and at some point,
like you just can't have such a big weakness on
(20:15):
your football team. You could have a solid position group
somewhere based on that allocation, but you can't have such
a weakness that it affects your ability to compete on Sundays. Right,
and I think it's the same thing for for front
office staff. You know, whether that's in our roles, with equipment, videos,
sports science, training room, docs, all that, you have to
(20:35):
have a really strong group. And it's the same way
for coaching staff, and even more so. That we've seen
is the coordinators are so important because when you're the
head coach, just like when you're the GM, like I
think that there's a perception you're the GM, you're sitting
in your office, you're watching tape, you know, you're grading players.
That's the job, right, when the job isn't even close
to that right, and the job is this all encompassing
(20:57):
football ops job of you know how now, okay, resources,
how I'm going to negotiate contracts, how I'm gonna hire
a great performance staff, a great training staff, how I'm
gonna deal with injuries. You know how I'M gonna deal
with talking to ownership, how I'M gonna deal with talking
to the head coach. And so it's the same thing
being a head coach, right, you gotta deal with the
media and both of our jobs, and so you you
(21:19):
have to do messaging to the team. So you're not
there just just game planning, just thinking about how am
I gonna beat the Falcons this week? You know you're
you're thinking about all this stuff. So just like we
better have really good people around us who are really,
I view, like a funnel, who are really funneling it
down to the most important things. The head coach better
have that. And it starts with the coordinators and I
(21:41):
think it's it started with watching coach read where he
had eight guys on his coaching staff end up being
head coaches, and extremely successful head coaches, right Um, no
doubt about it, and it was because he picked the
best in the brightest and he started them and he
trained them and they rise to coordinators and they rise
to head coaches. And you see that in our super
bowl year, right Um. You know our our defensive Foreignamer,
(22:04):
Jim Schwartz, who was a head coach and certainly one
of the premier defensive minds and and really great football mind.
You know, you work with Jim and you know how
he is as a coach, and then Frank Reich, who
goes to Indianapolis, has been tremendously success play coach. And
then we had extremely experienced, extremely Um, a great special
(22:26):
team's coach, and Dave Phipp and it worked down to
to the position coaches as well, and so I think
that it's really important. So, you know, I'd say this
like at the end of the day, like you're not
trying to to pick the entire staff for the head coach. Right.
They get these opportunities just like we do. Just like
I wouldn't like a head coach coming in and say,
hire this guy's your southeast Scout, hire this guy as
(22:48):
your pro director. But sometimes it's it's as simple as hey,
do you know this guy? You know, he's someone that
I've had the opportunity to meet, Um, and he'd be
worth doing. And I'll give you a great example. You,
coach Sriani. You know our new head coach who Um,
today's four youth birthday. Unbelievable. You know, we used to
be the young guys. Are we the old guys now?
That's exactly right, I don't know. It's crazy. And and
(23:11):
he had this list of coaches and he and and
he came to me and he said, Hey, you know you,
you've been on the road. Is there any college quarterback
coach that you know? You know? And I said Yeah,
you know, I'm the Florida Grad go gators, you know.
And Brian Johnson was the offensive coordinator at the University
of Florida, had gone back and coach quarterbacks at Mississippi
State and the offensive at Mississipi state with Dark Prescott.
(23:32):
And and he came in and, Um, he said I
want to interview him and he blew socks off. He
didn't have any pre existing relationship and he hired him,
you know, and I think that just shows the open mind.
And let me ask you this along the lines of coaching.
Have you ever run into a situation, however, where a
coach is putting together a staff and their focus is
too much on the loyalty of the staff versus the
(23:56):
talent of the coaching staff? And how do you help that? Yeah,
I think at the end of the day we all
have our biases, we all have our instincts to hire
people that we know, that we trust that we like.
I mean that's natural in anything and to be to
be fair, you want to have some of those people around.
You know, I think that our best staffs have always
been where I could go next door, close the door
(24:19):
and say, I'm struggling with this decision. Tell tell me
what you would think if you're in my role. Right,
and and and that's kind of the humility you have
to have as a GM. And it's not like my
way or the highway. It's like I gotta get perspective,
you know, and Um, and sometimes it comes from from
seeing guys like, you know, having guys understaff who played,
(24:41):
you know, like we have connor borrowing right now on
our staff and he's developing and I think he's outstanding
and and he's someone that I'll go out. All right,
how would this playing the locker room? If you're in
the locker room, how you doing that? So having that balance.
So I get that from a coaching perspective. I think
it's it's just being able to have the sounding board
and say, all right, are we hiring this person? Am
I hiring this person because they're my friends? Are you
(25:02):
hiring this person because you're friends, or are they helping
our football team, because at the end of the day,
I could hire all my best friends. If they're not
a good ours is gonna get fired right. So we
better have a good group of people around us or
it's not gonna matter how many friends you are because
they're gonna be out of work just with you. That's right.
What encourages you the most about the NFL looking into
(25:25):
the next five to ten years? You know, I think
that when I think about the growth of the game
and when you talk about like connecting with fans and
all these other sports struggling with like how do I
get fans attention? And then I think about our game,
the passion around our game and really the three hundred
(25:45):
sixty five day a year cycle. Like you know, I
work out in the morning, as you can tell. You know,
like Um and and I have ESPN on and it
doesn't matter what time of the year, where there is
some NFL related store. And it's not like that for
every sport. And so you think about the growth of
the game and Um, there are new areas to get
(26:07):
people engaged with the game and to get people to play.
And I think about then, you know, my family and
my three young sons and you know, even playing flag football.
Starting at four years old, they're playing flag football right
and there's leagues with that, and so you're engaging and
maybe it isn't fullpads contact at that age, but they're
(26:29):
finding the love of the game through that and the
League doing a great job and and attracting women. You know,
like thinking about that too. You know, and and I
think that you know, just seeing our building and the
diversity in our building and the people who are rising
and our own organization. You know, and Um, we recently
promoted Kathryne Rais who, Um, we had gotten from the CFL.
(26:52):
She was an assistant GM in the CFL and Um,
she had been here. This is the third year in Philly,
and just you know how how it she is, how
talented she is at putting the whole picture together and
understanding scouting and salary cap and football ops and and
the performance aspect of it. And so before again, you're
(27:12):
not coming into the league. There weren't as many opportunities.
You know, we we promoted Um, uh, one of our scouts,
are you, who was into a pro scouting role too.
And so I think that when you think about that
and think about the interest and the determination to get
into the national football league when you're a young woman
and then have that kind of passion, and that just
(27:33):
shows the where the game is today. And I think
what what I love about that is that knowing that
we're part of something that has that much reach and
that people care that much. Let so many people care
about our game and it affects our cities in such
different ways and and that's why I was excited when
he said what should we do, like let's go to
the rocky steps, because just seeing that parade, and we'll
(27:56):
talk about it later, and just seeing the effects that
had on people and still to this day people coming
up to me and saying thank you, thank you for
three years ago, you know, Um, and we'll talk about
more of that. Well, I was really talking about the
diversity in the game and then it kind of got
diversity inclusion is something that is so encouraging, for sure.
And on the other side of this, what are you
(28:17):
the most concerned about over the next five to ten
years in the NFL? Well, I think it's it's also
I feel like the narrative about the health and safety
has turned to and I don't necessarily think that it's fair.
I think that, you know, the safety of our game
has gotten better and better each year. I feel like
the National Football League does an unbelievable job of trying
(28:40):
to be proactive about those things and, Um, you know,
I feel like all these sports. I mean we're just
talking when you got here. You know, my eight year
old son's playing in a low league all star game
last night and one of the coaches hits a fungo
and plop h's the year old kid in the nose,
breaks his nose, you know, and I think the sport
with the biggest rise of concussions is soccer, you know,
whether where there is no padding. And so I feel
(29:02):
like making sure that that parents understand how important health
and safety is, Um to the national football league and
making sure that kids go out and play. I think
that's the thing that making sure, from a PR perspective,
we're getting out there and and talking about the realities
of the benefits also a playing football fantastic. Well, within
(29:22):
the League and outside of Your Organization, a lot of
people look at you and your relationship with Jeffrey Lowery
and admire it, and it's it's it's thought upon as
being so solid and sound. What is the key to
your relationship with your owner? Well, I think one it's trust,
for sure, you know, and understanding that, Um, we're gonna
(29:44):
be very honest with each other and if he has
a different opinion, I'm gonna Tell my opinion and then
we're gonna walk out the door and we're gonna do
what's best for the team together. And I think it's
also demonstrated ability. Right. I mean, at the end of
the day, Um, if we didn't have success on the field,
it will be hard for him to have trust of,
you know, me running his his franchise on a day
(30:04):
day basis. You know, obviously we have a head coach,
we have a lot of good people who are running
their apartments, Um, and I'm not micromanaging that, they're running them.
So I think that's the key and I think, again,
it's it's one of these things where like experience matters
and continuing to try to grow in your job matters,
and I think that, Um, if if I was an owner,
(30:25):
I'd want to see somebody who's trying to hire the
best people, not just trying to protect their own turf
and trying to continue to try to get better and learn,
because we're going to make mistakes. I mean now, we
talked about this internally all the time, like I make
a lot of fucking mistakes, like, there's no doubt right.
But the best the GMS are in the hall of fame.
They hit six in their first round picks. So excuse me.
(30:50):
So I think it's about why did you make a mistake?
Are you learning from it? Are you going back and
looking at the process, because the process is much more
important than the outcomes. If you have a good process
and a bad outcome, you can live with it. If
you have a bad process and a bad outcome, that's
on you and that's really not acceptable. That's good. Okay,
three quick hitters. One, what would you have done differently
(31:12):
leading up to your time before you came into the
NFL that you might share with rising executives? Yeah, I
think that maybe not being so football focused and may
be more focused on what other sports were doing and
the team billing aspects of that, as opposed to wait
until two thifteen, to kind of realize some of those things.
(31:32):
I think that was really important and I got a
fourteen year old son who, unfortunately, all he wants to
do is work in the national football league and he'll
say to me like how is this going to help
me be prepared to be a GM and I said well,
by being well rounded, by being able to get experience
in a lot of different areas. That is going to
help you run a team in some way. So I
think just I was so um laser focused on the
(31:56):
end goal that at some points maybe I didn't see
the big picture and think the same thing, like it's
okay to focus on the relationships, you know, when you're
young in this business, as opposed to just the endgame.
I mean, I think about that often. I think about
I think I would have worked so much more on
schooling myself leadership. I always thought, well, I was a
(32:17):
natural leader because in in sport that allowed me to
be a leader. There were other elements that I think
could have been so much more beneficial in those in
those formative years. Part of leadership. You know, there there
is some natural elements leaderships, or a part of it
is experience and facing adversity and you can't you know,
all of us have been so fortunate to get these
jobs and mostly we get them because we were kind
(32:39):
of moving forward, and so it's not until you get
your legs cut out from you that you really see
the internal fortitude that you have and how you're gonna
react to the great point. All right, in that middle time,
from from the time that you were in the NFL
rising through the ranks just before becoming a general manager,
is there anything you would have done different shared with people? Well,
(32:59):
I I think again, like we go back to it,
I was incredibly fortunate to have this well rounded education
in the national football league, you know, and it really
started with Joe and Jeffrey and Andy saying, like here's
the job you have right now, do it really well
and we'll expand it. And they did that. And so
I feel like and timing in life is everything. Time
(33:20):
is everything in relationships, right, personal relationships and professional relationships.
And when I got here it was a year after
coach read had gotten here and the organization was young
and they had made a GM change about a year
after I got here and we hired a young GM,
Tom Hackert, who was another person that was hugely instrumental
in my career. We got him from Miami and I
(33:42):
was like the only remaining member of the front office
still here, and so I was able to he was
kind of like, you know, like what goes on here,
you know, and and I acted like I'd been here
ten years and I was here for like one year.
And and having that and being able to experience and
watch this young GM kind of grow in this league
gave me a front court seat on all the things
(34:05):
that he did really well and to be able to
pick his brain and really learn from him and a
lot of members of our organization during that time. All right,
so here's the final quick hitter. While you have been
the general manager and as you evolve as a general
manager and you look back sharing what some of our
contemporaries that are your contemporary is in the business right now,
(34:26):
that you may have a few more years on them,
what would you share that you would have done differently? Well,
I think that one of the most important thing is
really just empowering people, hiring good people and empowering them
and and trusting them. And that doesn't mean you don't
question them and you don't ask them the wise of
why they're doing things. But, Um, I think one of
(34:46):
the things I did is the young GM was like
I wanted to micromanage, you know. So, Um, we I'll
use our equipment guy who's tremendous. You know, Greg Delamitro
said it would be like, Hey, I gotta hired Assistant
Equipment Guy and I go great, uh tell set up
the time for me to interview. And when I had
that year, I'm going, what the heck do I know
about the job, responsibilities of the assistant equipment guy and
(35:08):
so like? Shouldn't I just be hiring the right person
for that job and then letting him hire his staff?
And so I think for me it was like I
want my fingerprints on every single aspect all football ops
as this young GM and I want to make sure
that everything is coming in front of me. And I
still think there's an aspect of that, because it's your
(35:29):
name on it, right, at the end of the day,
it's your record, it's your name. But I think it's
about like all right, I'm gonna hire these people who
are gonna lead their groups and then they're going to
be empowered to try to do the right thing as
much as possible and then to hire their own staffs.
I mean what I mean, that's just that's that's maturity right.
I mean no question about it. You have a really good,
(35:49):
sound understanding of that now. Alright, so let's talk a
little bit about where the League is with diversity and inclusion.
It's an important topic. Of course we'll make strides and
yet we still have a long way to go. What
is your stance on that league related and, more importantly,
your stance with regard to the Philadelphia Eagles? Yeah, well,
(36:10):
all you have to do is see the progress we've
made really over the last twelve, thirty six months, and
it is huge. Right. It's it's incremental. It's like it's
growing and growing and growing, and I think it's it's
based on the talent level. Just like you talk about,
you know where you're getting players from. Like your pool
(36:30):
is increasing because there are people who are more in diverse,
people who are interested in being in the national football league,
who have set their career goals towards that and they
point their start towards that and they go in that direction.
And once you have those people who are talented and
smart and diverse and dedicated and determined, now you have
a pool to take from people and I think that
(36:51):
when we look at these jobs, you know, I feel
like the NFL was the last really league to just
go all right, you play to college, you come into
the NFL, you have a job. Right, all these other leagues, NBA,
Major League Baseball, NHL, E P L, they're taking the
best in the brightness, you know, they're taking people who
are really talented and they're hiring them. And I think
(37:14):
that you see that starting to happen. So what you're
what you're seeing, just like you're seeing, I guess, again,
in the corporate world. I don't know, because I've never
been in the corporate world, but they're they're hiring the
best in the brightest that are diverse, right. They're not
just looking for people who maybe just look like you
and I, you know, they're looking for the best in
the brightest all over. And really, when you think about
like the Philadelphia Eagles, Jeffrey has always been about that,
(37:37):
you know. I remember a couple of years ago there
was like an NBC today feature on Jeffrey About, you know,
our our our senior VPS on the business side. I
think we have like we have like four senior VPS
that are women on the business side, and so he's
always been about where they came from and and really
that's how I got in here, right, like I had
an UN traditional path, and so I think it's like
(37:57):
you want to pay it forward and you want to
give people the opportunity to get in who are talented,
no matter where they come from, what backgrounds they come from,
and and so that starts at the top with our ownership,
and then I feel like that that's an obligation that
I have to our community to make sure that we're
a diverse group of people. So how we let's let's
(38:17):
talk a little bit about life in general. Let's talk
about mind, body and soul. Let's talk about life balance.
Where are you on all that at this far into
your career? Sometimes people like you can't have life balance
in the NFL. What do you feel about that? Well,
it's funny. Um Ken Fraser was CEO Mark Um, one
(38:37):
of four fortune, African, American, fortune, five hundred CEOS, and
he's Um. He's from North Philly and a huge eagle
fan and we hadn't talked to our team and I
talked to him after and I said now here's a
struggle of four kids under fourteen, and he said don't
let anyone who doesn't have a big job convince you
(38:58):
that they have perfect life balance, because is not true.
Right you can't run a company, you can't run a
team and also be the perfect husband and Dad. It's
just not possible. As much as we both would like to,
you can't do it right, and so something has to go.
So one you have to have the perfect meat right.
You have to find someone who understands and understands that
(39:21):
you're doing this because you're passionate about it and you're
doing it to help your career and your life and
their life. And I think that that's the first thing,
and I have that. I mean my wife is first
pick in the draft, superstar, like at a control great right,
and so she gets that and part of it is,
you know, she we met when I was doing this,
so she doesn't know any different, right. I think that's
(39:42):
the second thing. And then and then it's about like,
you know, when you do have the moments, you know,
like when you don't come to pilly and fift and
I can spend time with my family. Um, you know,
you you have to take advantage of those moments and
you have to be able to do that. Now it
doesn't matter, you know, with this like every day that
I wake up when we're off in the next few weeks.
(40:04):
I will check my phone and every night I'll kind
of go to bed like please, phone don't ring right
because that's what that's what we have to be on
guard for. Like this, this is a tough time for
us because we're on vacation, the players are on vacation,
the staffs on vacation. Like you, don't want that call,
like you know dom. You met dom today, unbelievable best
at his job in the national football league. When his
(40:26):
when he calls me, I don't even say hello. I
said what happened, you know, and sometimes it's like no,
I just want to a great restaurant. Just want to
let you know. I'm like, I love you, man, I
love you, I love you man. But I think so.
You know, what you try to do is at least
try to be president, and when you're not mentally present
with them, you better fake the ship out of it
so they don't feel it, you know, until your mind
(40:47):
maybe going, but not to do that. And I think
part of that is just like these the phones, putting
it somewhere, just putting it somewhere. So making sure, like
I can't just go on my phone and do it,
because they're addicting. And so you you know that. All Right,
if I'm gone for two hours and I'm doing something like,
someone will get me if they're really mean. Nothing Earth
Shattering is gonna Happen at that time. But you know,
(41:09):
I think we talk about work life balance, and for
me that's like getting my mind right. So what do
I do? Like, I have to start my day doing something,
doing a workout. I have to like eat good food,
like I like eating good food. I like going to
good restaurants. You know, I got this passion for food. Right.
Do you like Tequila? I Love Tequila. Right, so you
gotta you got it. Now, you can't go crazy in
(41:29):
these jobs, right, like you know, like, but I feel
like you have to have that to what you Kinda
do is you can't be so hard on yourself that
you can't have fun. You gotta let yourself go a
little bit. And so you know that means, like, you know,
midday and I were like, all right, we gotta have
at least to day nights a month, right, like it's
just me and her and not the kids, not another couple,
just the two of us. And because there are Wednesday nights,
(41:52):
and I know you know what I'm saying, like they're
Wednesday nights during the season that you come home and
you've deale with the whole day and you've got to
get through it, not to make sure nobody sees your sweat,
and then you're shot, emotionally shot, and took go. Well,
on Saturday we got this, this and this. Can you
drive here? Can we do this? What are we doing?
And I'm like what, you know? No, I I can't,
(42:12):
I can't, I can't, I gotta go to sleep, like
I can't. And so we had so it got to
the point after where I was like, I'm going back.
When you think of something during the week, put it
on your phone and we're going to spend one home
one night and we're just gonna freaking go through it.
We're gonna roll through it, we're gonna roll through all
the things we have to catch up on. It's been
great for us because now it's like now there's sometimes
(42:34):
she's like I gotta get you, like I can't wait
till we do this. So having that and understanding like
you have to find time for the people you love
and care about, otherwise you're gonna burn out, you know.
And and we had one of the most famous coaches
of all time in terms of burnout and a great
coach and a great person. And Dick for meal, it
was still really close to the team and you probably
(42:55):
drive on freaking ninety five and you still see it
from me. It was a coaching freaking nine eighties, like
you know Hawk and something you know people love Dick
for meal, and it was because, like he had no
work life balance, like it was like a hundred miles
an hour all the freaking time. And so you don't
burn out. And these are marathons, these are not sprints.
and Um, you know, our job besides this, this period
(43:17):
of the year right now, they don't stop at the
end of the season. Right we're we're going on the
coach's offseason. That's our season, and during the season we
gotta be there to support the coaches and the players. So, Um,
you gotta find balance. You obviously have a good understanding
of a balance. Okay, I'm gonna ask you. Not Really,
but well, yeah, as good as we count. We talked
a good game, right, we talked a good game. Question.
(43:38):
It's it's easy to talk a good game. Of course
it's complicated. Okay, I'M gonna ask you the Tim Ferris
Life Style Guru question. We're a footnote hill. In the
last three to five years, what philosophy, approach, adjustment to
your life have you made that has significantly improved your life? Well,
(43:59):
I think the date night has been a huge part
for my relationship with my wife in terms of just
us finding the time, the two of us, to enjoy
each other, have fun and get back to, you know,
where we were even before we had kids, right and
I think that that's huge for us to be able to,
you know, go out on a Saturday night, make sure
we get a driver, you know, have a drink in
(44:21):
there and the two of us and talk and catch
up and, Um, you know, she looks great and you
know so you you get, you get that kind of
fun back where it's not just, you know, you come
home and you got four kids under fourteen, like that's
not always hot and sexy, no matter how good looking
you and I are, dude. You know, like it's it's
it doesn't always get us. So to have that moment
where you go out and address them, I think that's
(44:42):
been a huge part of kind of like what I've
done the last three to five years. And then I
think the second part of it is just like I
think you know, like all of us, no matter what
you say, you always worry about losing your job. And
I think when it actually happened to you, which it
really did to me in fifteen, you know, and it
happens to you like, I think the anticipation of it
(45:05):
is way worse than the reality. Like maybe you're in
the news for a couple of days and but at
the end of the day, because of the way the
news cycle works in this world, in this country, with
social media and everything is eight hours, everyone gets over.
Nobody really cares, you know, like nobody really kind of goes.
I didn't that used to be the old GMA Atlanta Falcons. Oh,
I wonder what he's doing. Is He's gonna be okay,
(45:27):
nobody cares, you know. And so I think for me
in two thousand and fifteen, going through it and kind of,
you know, being dead, you know, and and seeing how
that looks and kind of watching it and then coming
back it's like, okay, life still goes on, you know,
like it's nobody. It's okay, and so maybe not worrying
so much about that and then being able to play
(45:49):
fast and not worry so much about all the mistakes
going to make and really more so thinking like all right,
the national football league, like everything else, is like a
bell curve, and so it's the designed where everyone's here,
and so I'd rather try to be over here and
maybe risk that I'm on this side of the bell
(46:09):
curve then be stuck in the middle. That's great. One
thing I will add, however. I thought that no one's
gonna care about Thomas de Mitrof in the Atlanta Falcons relationship,
and yet Julio Jones gets traded and it's I'm the
reason that he got traded. So there's still a little
bit of critique. Yeah, that doesn't ever go away. Really,
that doesn't go and that doesn't go away until we're
really removed from that whole thing, because then it's it's
(46:33):
easy to blame, like it's easy to blame all the
bad decisions on the on and Terry and Arthur, great guys.
Arthur Arthur, great guys. So I'm not saying that for
them in particular. What I'm saying like it's easy just
to say that was their fault, that was their fault.
You know, it was a cap related issue. Julio would
be there if the captain, you know, were to be
in a different spot, which it doesn't really matter what
(46:55):
it is. It's just excuse me. But here's the funny thing,
like everyone said, is they'll do whatever it takes to
win a championship, right, and then when you do whatever
it takes a win championship and it comes with repercussions,
of course. When you do that, then it's like what
were they thinking? Well, they were thinking. They were trying
to win a championship. Good question. That's a great, great
but now very last question. If there were to be
(47:19):
one question that you feared I was going to ask
you today, what would it be? You do not have
to answer it. You know, just being in the city
and getting asked every question, being critiqued about, you know
who you are as a person and, um, your motives
and agendas. You know the personal attacks that have gone through.
It's like, Um, you know, Charlie Castle used to have
(47:41):
that GM seminar and used to talk about Jack Hen
Cook and said, you know, once you're wet, what's another drop? Um,
I wasn't worried. Wow, look, I mean what a treat
again to be around a really intelligent guy like Howie Roseman.
I mean climbing the rocky stairs, you know, with Howie
(48:03):
being there was a highlight for me as as well
as some great food in the community, he took me
right to the heart of it all and we had
some great philly food and again great opportunity to meet
with a good friend of mine and have great respect
for Howie, as competitive as we are with each other.
And it looks as though he's gonna bypass me in
total years in this league, but that's great for him.
(48:25):
I'm looking for my good buddies to to bypass the
thirteen year rank and he's doing a really good job.
So it's fun to watch that. We're on our way
from Philly all the way out to Houston to meet
with our good friend Nick Kissario. Again. Being around Nick Kissario,
you get a real chance to see how authentic he
is as a person. He is one of those guys
(48:47):
that you again want to be around. You know that
he's gonna be there for you. He's a very loyal,
trusted person and trusted friend. I had a great opportunity
to spend time with him, although he had the way
of the world old on his shoulders. There's a lot
going on down in Houston, as we all know. He
manages it. He's a very resilient person. He's going to
(49:08):
survive in life no matter how it is. You have
been listening to the GM journey with Thomas demitrop. Continue
to follow Thomas as he interviews GMS from your favorite
NFL teams. The GM journey has been produced by Alan Castenbaum,
Thomas Demittro and Octagon Entertainment. Don't forget to download and
(49:31):
subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you get your
podcast from. The GM journey is distributed by the eight
side network.
My name is Ariel Custom Baum and I am the
founder of fair meals five, oh, one, c three, status
nonprofit that focuses on easy, healthy and affordable meal solutions
for families of all walks of life. On our website,
fair meals dot org, you can find, free of charge,
tons of tips, tricks and recipes that encompass are three
(00:21):
pillars of health, beast and affordability. To help continue to
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donating to this amazing initiative at fair meals dot org.
Forward slash donate. Okay, look, I mean what a great
visit with John Lynch, hanging out in San Francisco with
(00:43):
such a highly regarded individual, not only on the field
as a player, as a general manager, but as a person.
Like I said, great treat to spend time with him.
I've had so much great feedback after talking to him
about people who are interested in listening to his inside
it's great visit. So thank you so much, John Lynch.
We're on our way up to Philadelphia, all the way
(01:06):
across the country to meet with Howie Roseman. Welcome to
the GM journey with Thomas dimitrof. This is a guy
who has run the gamut. I mean he is. He
is a very big brain, smart guy with a really
good insight and a and an approach, a very confident
approach to him. He and I get along really, really
(01:26):
well and, as I mentioned, we're very competitive with each other.
Over the years he's had an opportunity to work with
some great head coaches. He's also worked with some head
coaches who have been a challenge for him. You know,
we we watch Howie and we watch how he navigates
through a really tough community, really football centric community, in Philly.
This guy is resilient. Check it out. You'll be really
(01:47):
impressed with what how he has to say. All Right,
PHILADELPHIA PA with the GM on the Philadelphia Eagles. Howie Roseman,
thanks for joining me. Great see brother. Well, I pulled
led up and this the first time I've ever been here.
At you guys kicked our asses over so many years
when I was with Atlanta. Look at this place. You know,
it's funny you say that because I remember texting you
(02:11):
many times off on the bus after we were down
in Atlanta and getting our asking, you know, and being
like great job, and I think of the game where
we played the second game of the year and it
was two thousand and eleven or two thousand eleven. Yeah,
and Mike got hurt. My Kapta came in and I
(02:33):
remember Um d R C was covering Julio down the
sideline and I don't know, I'll never forget that. Like
you heard, I watched the REPLAN and here Alan Michael's
going like how are you going to stop this defense?
I got this unbelievable defensive line. We had D R C,
we had a Sante who you had namdi Um and
that was like the last moment of that season that
(02:54):
was actually fun. And then we end up like going
eight and eight and not winning, but a lot, a
lot of battles and a lot of respect, like we've
done this together for so long, and just talking about things.
So I'm glad you're in Philly because I feel like
we don't get a chance to be on each other's
turf all up here we are finally to go out
and have some great dinner tonight we're here. I mean,
I just I have so many questions. I woke up
(03:14):
this morning. I've had a great month and a half
traveling around the country, visiting with all of our contemporaries
and it's been so great to rekindle some friendships again.
We're always so busy right we get on the phone,
we're talking about a trade, we're rushing off talking about
this or that. We maybe see each other at the
owners meetings, at least we used to. Right now we're
not going to. I'm kind of in in that limbo time.
(03:37):
But one of the reasons that I really wanted to
do this again is connect talk football professionally developed and uh,
you know, capture some of this, because I think what
you have to offer, uh, like a lot of other
general managers in this league, I think is huge and
I think too often general managers in our league are,
I don't know, I feel at times a little bit
(03:57):
marginalized where they shouldn't be. And I understand head coaches
at the front end of it not baseball, right, it's
it's not basketball, and the head coaches are so important,
but at the same time, I think the other thing
is that you know a lot of other sports. We
talked to you, and I do this all the time,
we talked to a lot of GMS and other sports
and they always say like I feel like NFL GMS
(04:18):
eat their own right, like guys get fired in baseball
or basketball and they immediately get picked up by their
boys right and they get another job. And I think,
like people may think that, like we're so competitive that
we don't have these relationships. We don't pick up the
phone and say, what are you thinking about this and
what are you think about that? And I always appreciated
that I could do that with you about anything. Like
I could call you and say, what are you thinking
and Um, and we had that with each other. So
(04:41):
I missed that and I'm glad we get a chance
to do that. That's it's so important. I was going
to lead in today's questions and we're spending, because I
knew we would spend. Were love that. I'm not sure.
I'm not sure I ever got diagnosed with a D D,
but I definitely have it right. Well, you wear it well. Right, yeah,
you wear it well. So I look at this and
I was thinking again coming in here to Philly to
to spend some time with you, and I thought you're
(05:04):
one of the most respected and one of the most
accomplished general managers in our league right now. You've done
some wonderful things. You've won some big games. You want
a super bowl. You've won conference championships. You want executive
of the year. You've you know, you've you've set yourself
in your line for for many years to come and very,
very well respected. You're living the proverbial dream. And I
(05:27):
look back on an article recently when you men mentioned, uh,
you made mention that you literally wanted to be a
GM at what age? Yeah, so, Um, it was funny
because I knew what I wanted to do, like as
young as eight years old, and I want to play
quarterback in the national football league. But you know, you
see these guys, man, it is hard. I definitely didn't
have the genetic pool that you need to play in
(05:48):
the national football league, but I had this advantage of
knowing what direction I wanted to go in, when it's
hard to do this. And we also got in at
a different time, like there was no way to connect
like you do now. You can't send an email, send
a text like you. You had to have the drive
in the termination to kind of go in that direction,
and so, Um, you know, just very fortunate. Got An
(06:10):
opportunity and look like you know, you haven't been with
many franchises, right and I've been with one like that.
This you ask, I know when this building was built.
You know, to be here and in this market and
the passion this market has for as long as I have,
and you know obviously you have to have some success,
but it's also humbling. I mean you talk about it
and make the playoffs three years in a row, win
the Super Bowl and then last year I have the
(06:32):
year that we have and, you know, win four games
and you kind of anytime you think you arrive in
this business, you get your ass kicked. You have such
a good grasp of that. We talked about it. We're
on the phone and we're flying through and we fire
off some questions and some some you know, comical remarks
and then we move on and we come back and again.
I value that a great deal. You. You have this
(06:55):
way of being able to communicate with the people around you.
Your very clear and candid. You take care of a
lot of people over the years. That is one of
the things that is beyond admirable. When people talk about
Howie Roseman, you've people have been fired and you've brought
him back. You you have helped people out in a
lot of different ways and you have a really good
(07:15):
grasp of understanding the importance of people to people and
and the people to people skills that you have, again,
is beyond admirable. Where does that come from? Yeah, I
think that the most important thing is loyalty, right, and
when you find good people and being loyal to them,
but not only that, but taking care of them and
their families. Like, Um, we've talked about this. We have
(07:36):
this unique opportunity in these roles to be able to
take care of people. Now, obviously that starts with ownership,
you know, and we have an unbelievable owner in Jeffrey
lury and what he wants to do and the people
around him. We've been around him for a long time,
so it starts with him. But I view that as
like the best part of the job is being able
to take care of people and their families when they're
doing a good job. and Um, Philly is an unbelievably
(07:59):
passionate mark good. I mean football here is king and
because of that it's great when you win and it's
hard when you lose and the expectations are really high.
And not only do I get to feel that, but
the people who work for the Eagles get to feel
that and they know that when they're taking their kids
to a football game or a baseball game just then playing,
they're gonna go what's going on with the EGELS, you know,
(08:21):
like why? And then when things are good, like that's awesome.
So everyone here feels that. And so what can you do?
You can have high standards and high have high expectations
because we have an unbelievable talented staff, but you can
also take care of them and make sure that they
understand because we're in a big market, because we're in
a football crazy town, they should be compensated well too.
(08:41):
So I'm gonna ask you a tough question and a
humbling question. If I were to ask you what differentiates
Howie Roseman from other GMS in this league, Humbly speaking,
of course, what would it be? Well, one, I've been
privileged to have the experience you know, and experience is important.
I know that Um, all of us look for the
(09:02):
newest and brightest and best, and that's important too, but
the more you do your job, the better you get
at it. Um, and then I think it's being surrounded
by really good people, really strong people, and and sometimes,
you know, you hire staff and you go well, is
this guy and we see it in this league all
the time. You know, a couple of our friends have
experienced it. You know I've experienced it, where you you
(09:23):
hire really good people and then they want to take
you over. You know. So are you really encouraged to
hire the best and the brightest because you're worried about
protecting your turf? But Um, I've been so fortunate to
be around great people and you know, we've talked about
our owner. Um, I came into the league with a
president team, Joe Boundary, brilliant, understood how to build teams,
(09:43):
how to build organizations. And then, you know, a hall
of fame coach. You know, maybe, Um, you put him
wherever you want to put him in the top five,
but the top five coach and Andy Reid, who, Um,
was the best leader you could ever be around, and
not only from the perspective of building a football team
and in front of the team, which he's outstanding, but
also in the building and hiring staffs and building a
(10:05):
football team and and he loved the art of team building.
He loves spending time with Ron Wolf who, you know,
both of us admire obviously a great deal, and one
of the role models for general managers in the National
Football League, and so he learned all those lessons through
Ron and then he'd impart them to all of us.
and Um, one coming up. We went to a super
bowl in two thousand and four and we had eight
(10:27):
guys on that staff who ended up being GMS or
Vice Presidents of player personnel, and so, you know, we
had this opportunity, including want to just want a super bowl, right,
Jason Um, and so we had the opportunity. It was
like a think tank, like, I don't know, I haven't
worked anywhere else, you know, I've only worked in football,
but I gotta think that that's like what goes on
at Google or facebook, like you have these freaking brilliant
young people who all you can see like they're going places,
(10:50):
like they're going to be at a high level, but
at the same time, like you're sharing ideas and you're competitive,
just like you're playing one on one basketball with them, um,
and I feel just being around that environment and then
trying to pay that forward and hire really good people.
And one of the things I'm most proud of is,
you know, the amount of GM's we've had. It come
out of here and I know you spent some time
with them over the last couple of weeks. Well, you again.
(11:13):
You've had an opportunity to be around some great football minds,
great leaders, great coaches that you just mentioned with Andy
Reid and other coaches. Some were position coaches and coordinators.
It's really interesting to take that all in. Having been
in this league for as long as you have been,
you understand the importance of that relationship between GM and
head coach. It's vital. You cannot survive you cannot thrive,
(11:36):
and that's say. That said you, at times it can
be a little rocky, other times it can be smoothed.
So if I first asked you who was the most
influential leader, you would say Andy. And a football no
doubt about it. Okay, so your relationship with Andy was
unbelievable at so many levels. You learned so much. If
if I were to ask you, or if a group
(11:57):
of owners were to humbly ask you, how do you
ideally put together a head coach general manager relationship and
basically put together the top end of the football operations
of the NFL team, what would you say? Yeah, I'd say.
The first thing is I think that what happens is,
you know, everyone, like the Kumbaya stuff, gets a little
(12:19):
bit overplayed, right, because at the end of the day,
if you have two people who just go yeah, what
you say, what you say, I mean there has to
be a little give and take in that relationship because
at the end of the day they're very different jobs, right,
like when you're a general manager in the National Football League,
you have to build for now and you also have
to protect the future. Like that is your job. Your
(12:40):
job is to make sure you're not just going one
year and then you're out. You have to build it
and you have an obligation to the organization, to the ownership,
to the fans, to make sure that you're trying to
compete for a long period of time now again, like
that doesn't mean that you're in the super bowl every
year because it's too hard. That doesn't mean that you
make the playoffs every year because it's really hard. Whereas
you're a coach, you're looking at now, how am I
(13:02):
going to win this game? How am I going to
make the playoffs this year? How am I gonna win
the Super Bowl this year? And that's fair. So if
you think about those two roles, there has to be
a little give and take. There has to be a
little bit of a dichotomy between those two jobs, and
so I think as long as there's respect and understands,
like you know, it's gonna come down at roster cuts,
(13:23):
it's gonna come down in free agent signs, it's gonna
come down in the draft, where not everything, from our perspective,
is going to be about this season and from their
perspective we respect that they have to win because they're
under the gun for that season, but we're also trying
to help them over the long term so that they
can spend a lot of time in Philadelphia. Right. You know,
coach read was here fourteen years and to do that
(13:45):
you need to compete over a long period of time
and to build the team and to and to build
the team you may have to take a small step
back at a certain area to take two steps form. Yeah,
head coaches and GM's vital that there's communication and relationship.
There's gonna be the high times, there's gonna be the
low times. No doubt you on the other side have
had a very challenging relationship with a head coach at
(14:07):
one time, and chip Kelly called the way it is.
There was a lot of talk about it, without getting
into a ton of detail on it. Very curious. What
was the main lesson you learned from that GM head
coaching relationship? Well, one I do think that there are
very few people in this world who can handle both jobs.
I mean the jobs are just they're too big for
(14:30):
one person to handle. and Um, you know, coach read
do that. He had it here and I remember when
he left he said, you know, when you're meeting with
the equipment guy or when you're meeting with the video
guy and talking about staffing and you're talking about some
of the struggles they're dealing with on a day to
day basis and you're still trying to coach the team,
you only have a little amount of time in a
(14:51):
day to do that. So you know it's hard to
run the building. Now, obviously you know. You talk about
another one of the greatest all time, Bill Belichi, get
his ability to do it and and Andy did at
a high level. Went to five championship games with Co
treat so you could do it, but it's really hard
and so I think that the separation of powers work.
So to go to the original question, I'm talking to
(15:13):
an owner what would the separation of powers makes sense
because you want to have two really strong people doing
their job at a really high level and that allows
you to stay in your air of expertise but at
the same time also being able to communicate effectively. And
I think when I think about it, you know, maybe
what I did and I look at myself in that situation,
(15:35):
you know maybe I took for granted because I was
with someone for so long, with coach read, and that
it was just it was easy. He was flowing like
I knew him before I was married and had kids,
and you know, literally we were with each other through
through births and deaths and marriages and life. So sometimes
maybe you take that relationship because it's so easy, because
(15:56):
you're with someone for so long. Doesn't mean we didn't
have challenges, but you kind of take it for granted
and then you go all right, well, you have to
build that from scratch with with a new head coach,
and so it doesn't just flow like that. Like any relationship,
you have to really work at it and spend time
and build trust. I think that's one of the things
that I took out of that is that it's really
(16:17):
important to have that and then, at the same time,
like you know, making sure that the communication is going
person to person, man to man, I'd eye, and that
you're not having delegance. You know you're not having well,
you know you're really close with this guy, so maybe
you talked to this guy and then I talked to
that guy. That doesn't work, you know, and and you
have to have those hard conversations and as long as
(16:39):
there's mutual respect, those hard conversations can come out in
a good place. So I'm curious, having gotten fired in
October and in my own contemplative area of my life
right now and and moving around thinking a lot during
that time when chip Kelly was here and you were adjusted,
and I mean it is a correct and saying, moved
up in a way a little bit during that time.
(17:00):
Was that? Were you traveling around the country in the world?
Were you spending time professionally developing during that time? Yeah,
and I think it's funny that you talk about what
you're doing because you know, Um, when that happened with
coach Kelly and I could see the writing on the wall.
And to be fair, we had won Um twenty games
and two years together and and it's hard to find coaches.
(17:21):
You know, it's hard to find hard to find GMS,
but it's hard to find coaches. And so I understood
where Jeffrey was coming from and, Um, I had some
time left on my contract and, Um, I talked to
him and I said, you know, I really I came
into the NFL and all I was trying to do
was keep moving forward, right. And so what does that mean? Right,
I tried. I started doing cap and then I went
(17:43):
to pro scouting and then I went to college scouting
and then I put it all together and I was
a really young GM and I never really had a
moment because when you're in these jobs you can relate
to it. Like I wake up in the morning, I'm
thinking about the team, I go to bed to night,
I'm thinking about the team. Right, like it's uh, when
all these guys leaving, they get GM jobs and they say,
what's the biggest difference between the job I have now
(18:04):
and the job I'm going into? And I said you
wake up in the morning with a not in your stomach,
you go to bed in a not in your stomach
and you just you know that there's gonna be an issue.
You'RE gonna have to deal with every single day and
you just prepare someone for that, you know, like that.
You don't, and when things are going good and you
take your foot off the gas, get your ass kicked.
And so I think for me it was like, you know,
(18:25):
I would love to do what these coaches did, which is,
you know, you see these these coaches who get let
go and they go around and and they go to
other UH, they go to college, they go to other
NFL teams and they learn and they kind of work
on themselves and I felt like there weren't a lot
of people. Maybe there were, but there weren't a lot
of people who are doing what you're doing now. And
(18:45):
so I went to Jeffrey and I said, Hey, this
is what I would like to do. You know, I
knew this was coming. This is what I like to do,
and he said I think it would be great. And
so I got this opportunity and I really feel like
it was the best thing professionally that ever happened to me,
because I an opportunity to step back, I got an
opportunity to work on a lot of my deficiencies and,
even more so, I got a freaking masters in running sports. Teams.
(19:10):
Really I didn't do it thinking like Hey, I'm gonna
come back in the year and I'm gonna go get
another opportunity. I did it because I felt like it
was such a great opportunity personally and professionally to be
able to do that. So let's talk about building staffs.
Let's talk about the importance of a stellar coaching staff,
and I'm not just saying the head coach, of course,
(19:30):
number one, most important. I'm talking about the coordinators and
I'm talking about the assistant coaches. I am convinced over
the years, the way that you're going to survive, the
way that you're going to win super bowls and championships
is to make sure that staff is very, very sound
at all levels. No doubt. What is your stance on staffs,
building the staff? How involved are you in the construction
(19:53):
of your coaching staff and how involved is your owner?
So I you talk about it, it's like your team, right,
like you, you're not gonna be you don't have pro
bowl players at every position. Right. It's allocation of resources.
We all basically have the same number draft picks, salary,
cap money, all that stuff. So you'RE gonna have to
pick where you want allocate resources and at some point,
like you just can't have such a big weakness on
(20:15):
your football team. You could have a solid position group
somewhere based on that allocation, but you can't have such
a weakness that it affects your ability to compete on Sundays. Right,
and I think it's the same thing for for front
office staff. You know, whether that's in our roles, with equipment, videos,
sports science, training room, docs, all that, you have to
(20:35):
have a really strong group. And it's the same way
for coaching staff, and even more so. That we've seen
is the coordinators are so important because when you're the
head coach, just like when you're the GM, like I
think that there's a perception you're the GM, you're sitting
in your office, you're watching tape, you know, you're grading players.
That's the job, right, when the job isn't even close
to that right, and the job is this all encompassing
(20:57):
football ops job of you know how now, okay, resources,
how I'm going to negotiate contracts, how I'm gonna hire
a great performance staff, a great training staff, how I'm
gonna deal with injuries. You know how I'M gonna deal
with talking to ownership, how I'M gonna deal with talking
to the head coach. And so it's the same thing
being a head coach, right, you gotta deal with the
media and both of our jobs, and so you you
(21:19):
have to do messaging to the team. So you're not
there just just game planning, just thinking about how am
I gonna beat the Falcons this week? You know you're
you're thinking about all this stuff. So just like we
better have really good people around us who are really,
I view, like a funnel, who are really funneling it
down to the most important things. The head coach better
have that. And it starts with the coordinators and I
(21:41):
think it's it started with watching coach read where he
had eight guys on his coaching staff end up being
head coaches, and extremely successful head coaches, right Um, no
doubt about it, and it was because he picked the
best in the brightest and he started them and he
trained them and they rise to coordinators and they rise
to head coaches. And you see that in our super
bowl year, right Um. You know our our defensive Foreignamer,
(22:04):
Jim Schwartz, who was a head coach and certainly one
of the premier defensive minds and and really great football mind.
You know, you work with Jim and you know how
he is as a coach, and then Frank Reich, who
goes to Indianapolis, has been tremendously success play coach. And
then we had extremely experienced, extremely Um, a great special
(22:26):
team's coach, and Dave Phipp and it worked down to
to the position coaches as well, and so I think
that it's really important. So, you know, I'd say this
like at the end of the day, like you're not
trying to to pick the entire staff for the head coach. Right.
They get these opportunities just like we do. Just like
I wouldn't like a head coach coming in and say,
hire this guy's your southeast Scout, hire this guy as
(22:48):
your pro director. But sometimes it's it's as simple as hey,
do you know this guy? You know, he's someone that
I've had the opportunity to meet, Um, and he'd be
worth doing. And I'll give you a great example. You,
coach Sriani. You know our new head coach who Um,
today's four youth birthday. Unbelievable. You know, we used to
be the young guys. Are we the old guys now?
That's exactly right, I don't know. It's crazy. And and
(23:11):
he had this list of coaches and he and and
he came to me and he said, Hey, you know you,
you've been on the road. Is there any college quarterback
coach that you know? You know? And I said Yeah,
you know, I'm the Florida Grad go gators, you know.
And Brian Johnson was the offensive coordinator at the University
of Florida, had gone back and coach quarterbacks at Mississippi
State and the offensive at Mississipi state with Dark Prescott.
(23:32):
And and he came in and, Um, he said I
want to interview him and he blew socks off. He
didn't have any pre existing relationship and he hired him,
you know, and I think that just shows the open mind.
And let me ask you this along the lines of coaching.
Have you ever run into a situation, however, where a
coach is putting together a staff and their focus is
too much on the loyalty of the staff versus the
(23:56):
talent of the coaching staff? And how do you help that? Yeah,
I think at the end of the day we all
have our biases, we all have our instincts to hire
people that we know, that we trust that we like.
I mean that's natural in anything and to be to
be fair, you want to have some of those people around.
You know, I think that our best staffs have always
been where I could go next door, close the door
(24:19):
and say, I'm struggling with this decision. Tell tell me
what you would think if you're in my role. Right,
and and and that's kind of the humility you have
to have as a GM. And it's not like my
way or the highway. It's like I gotta get perspective,
you know, and Um, and sometimes it comes from from
seeing guys like, you know, having guys understaff who played,
(24:41):
you know, like we have connor borrowing right now on
our staff and he's developing and I think he's outstanding
and and he's someone that I'll go out. All right,
how would this playing the locker room? If you're in
the locker room, how you doing that? So having that balance.
So I get that from a coaching perspective. I think
it's it's just being able to have the sounding board
and say, all right, are we hiring this person? Am
I hiring this person because they're my friends? Are you
(25:02):
hiring this person because you're friends, or are they helping
our football team, because at the end of the day,
I could hire all my best friends. If they're not
a good ours is gonna get fired right. So we
better have a good group of people around us or
it's not gonna matter how many friends you are because
they're gonna be out of work just with you. That's right.
What encourages you the most about the NFL looking into
(25:25):
the next five to ten years? You know, I think
that when I think about the growth of the game
and when you talk about like connecting with fans and
all these other sports struggling with like how do I
get fans attention? And then I think about our game,
the passion around our game and really the three hundred
(25:45):
sixty five day a year cycle. Like you know, I
work out in the morning, as you can tell. You know,
like Um and and I have ESPN on and it
doesn't matter what time of the year, where there is
some NFL related store. And it's not like that for
every sport. And so you think about the growth of
the game and Um, there are new areas to get
(26:07):
people engaged with the game and to get people to play.
And I think about then, you know, my family and
my three young sons and you know, even playing flag football.
Starting at four years old, they're playing flag football right
and there's leagues with that, and so you're engaging and
maybe it isn't fullpads contact at that age, but they're
(26:29):
finding the love of the game through that and the
League doing a great job and and attracting women. You know,
like thinking about that too. You know, and and I
think that you know, just seeing our building and the
diversity in our building and the people who are rising
and our own organization. You know, and Um, we recently
promoted Kathryne Rais who, Um, we had gotten from the CFL.
(26:52):
She was an assistant GM in the CFL and Um,
she had been here. This is the third year in Philly,
and just you know how how it she is, how
talented she is at putting the whole picture together and
understanding scouting and salary cap and football ops and and
the performance aspect of it. And so before again, you're
(27:12):
not coming into the league. There weren't as many opportunities.
You know, we we promoted Um, uh, one of our scouts,
are you, who was into a pro scouting role too.
And so I think that when you think about that
and think about the interest and the determination to get
into the national football league when you're a young woman
and then have that kind of passion, and that just
(27:33):
shows the where the game is today. And I think
what what I love about that is that knowing that
we're part of something that has that much reach and
that people care that much. Let so many people care
about our game and it affects our cities in such
different ways and and that's why I was excited when
he said what should we do, like let's go to
the rocky steps, because just seeing that parade, and we'll
(27:56):
talk about it later, and just seeing the effects that
had on people and still to this day people coming
up to me and saying thank you, thank you for
three years ago, you know, Um, and we'll talk about
more of that. Well, I was really talking about the
diversity in the game and then it kind of got
diversity inclusion is something that is so encouraging, for sure.
And on the other side of this, what are you
(28:17):
the most concerned about over the next five to ten
years in the NFL? Well, I think it's it's also
I feel like the narrative about the health and safety
has turned to and I don't necessarily think that it's fair.
I think that, you know, the safety of our game
has gotten better and better each year. I feel like
the National Football League does an unbelievable job of trying
(28:40):
to be proactive about those things and, Um, you know,
I feel like all these sports. I mean we're just
talking when you got here. You know, my eight year
old son's playing in a low league all star game
last night and one of the coaches hits a fungo
and plop h's the year old kid in the nose,
breaks his nose, you know, and I think the sport
with the biggest rise of concussions is soccer, you know,
whether where there is no padding. And so I feel
(29:02):
like making sure that that parents understand how important health
and safety is, Um to the national football league and
making sure that kids go out and play. I think
that's the thing that making sure, from a PR perspective,
we're getting out there and and talking about the realities
of the benefits also a playing football fantastic. Well, within
(29:22):
the League and outside of Your Organization, a lot of
people look at you and your relationship with Jeffrey Lowery
and admire it, and it's it's it's thought upon as
being so solid and sound. What is the key to
your relationship with your owner? Well, I think one it's trust,
for sure, you know, and understanding that, Um, we're gonna
(29:44):
be very honest with each other and if he has
a different opinion, I'm gonna Tell my opinion and then
we're gonna walk out the door and we're gonna do
what's best for the team together. And I think it's
also demonstrated ability. Right. I mean, at the end of
the day, Um, if we didn't have success on the field,
it will be hard for him to have trust of,
you know, me running his his franchise on a day
(30:04):
day basis. You know, obviously we have a head coach,
we have a lot of good people who are running
their apartments, Um, and I'm not micromanaging that, they're running them.
So I think that's the key and I think, again,
it's it's one of these things where like experience matters
and continuing to try to grow in your job matters,
and I think that, Um, if if I was an owner,
(30:25):
I'd want to see somebody who's trying to hire the
best people, not just trying to protect their own turf
and trying to continue to try to get better and learn,
because we're going to make mistakes. I mean now, we
talked about this internally all the time, like I make
a lot of fucking mistakes, like, there's no doubt right.
But the best the GMS are in the hall of fame.
They hit six in their first round picks. So excuse me.
(30:50):
So I think it's about why did you make a mistake?
Are you learning from it? Are you going back and
looking at the process, because the process is much more
important than the outcomes. If you have a good process
and a bad outcome, you can live with it. If
you have a bad process and a bad outcome, that's
on you and that's really not acceptable. That's good. Okay,
three quick hitters. One, what would you have done differently
(31:12):
leading up to your time before you came into the
NFL that you might share with rising executives? Yeah, I
think that maybe not being so football focused and may
be more focused on what other sports were doing and
the team billing aspects of that, as opposed to wait
until two thifteen, to kind of realize some of those things.
(31:32):
I think that was really important and I got a
fourteen year old son who, unfortunately, all he wants to
do is work in the national football league and he'll
say to me like how is this going to help
me be prepared to be a GM and I said well,
by being well rounded, by being able to get experience
in a lot of different areas. That is going to
help you run a team in some way. So I
think just I was so um laser focused on the
(31:56):
end goal that at some points maybe I didn't see
the big picture and think the same thing, like it's
okay to focus on the relationships, you know, when you're
young in this business, as opposed to just the endgame.
I mean, I think about that often. I think about
I think I would have worked so much more on
schooling myself leadership. I always thought, well, I was a
(32:17):
natural leader because in in sport that allowed me to
be a leader. There were other elements that I think
could have been so much more beneficial in those in
those formative years. Part of leadership. You know, there there
is some natural elements leaderships, or a part of it
is experience and facing adversity and you can't you know,
all of us have been so fortunate to get these
jobs and mostly we get them because we were kind
(32:39):
of moving forward, and so it's not until you get
your legs cut out from you that you really see
the internal fortitude that you have and how you're gonna
react to the great point. All right, in that middle time,
from from the time that you were in the NFL
rising through the ranks just before becoming a general manager,
is there anything you would have done different shared with people? Well,
(32:59):
I I think again, like we go back to it,
I was incredibly fortunate to have this well rounded education
in the national football league, you know, and it really
started with Joe and Jeffrey and Andy saying, like here's
the job you have right now, do it really well
and we'll expand it. And they did that. And so
I feel like and timing in life is everything. Time
(33:20):
is everything in relationships, right, personal relationships and professional relationships.
And when I got here it was a year after
coach read had gotten here and the organization was young
and they had made a GM change about a year
after I got here and we hired a young GM,
Tom Hackert, who was another person that was hugely instrumental
in my career. We got him from Miami and I
(33:42):
was like the only remaining member of the front office
still here, and so I was able to he was
kind of like, you know, like what goes on here,
you know, and and I acted like I'd been here
ten years and I was here for like one year.
And and having that and being able to experience and
watch this young GM kind of grow in this league
gave me a front court seat on all the things
(34:05):
that he did really well and to be able to
pick his brain and really learn from him and a
lot of members of our organization during that time. All right,
so here's the final quick hitter. While you have been
the general manager and as you evolve as a general
manager and you look back sharing what some of our
contemporaries that are your contemporary is in the business right now,
(34:26):
that you may have a few more years on them,
what would you share that you would have done differently? Well,
I think that one of the most important thing is
really just empowering people, hiring good people and empowering them
and and trusting them. And that doesn't mean you don't
question them and you don't ask them the wise of
why they're doing things. But, Um, I think one of
(34:46):
the things I did is the young GM was like
I wanted to micromanage, you know. So, Um, we I'll
use our equipment guy who's tremendous. You know, Greg Delamitro
said it would be like, Hey, I gotta hired Assistant
Equipment Guy and I go great, uh tell set up
the time for me to interview. And when I had
that year, I'm going, what the heck do I know
about the job, responsibilities of the assistant equipment guy and
(35:08):
so like? Shouldn't I just be hiring the right person
for that job and then letting him hire his staff?
And so I think for me it was like I
want my fingerprints on every single aspect all football ops
as this young GM and I want to make sure
that everything is coming in front of me. And I
still think there's an aspect of that, because it's your
(35:29):
name on it, right, at the end of the day,
it's your record, it's your name. But I think it's
about like all right, I'm gonna hire these people who
are gonna lead their groups and then they're going to
be empowered to try to do the right thing as
much as possible and then to hire their own staffs.
I mean what I mean, that's just that's that's maturity right.
I mean no question about it. You have a really good,
(35:49):
sound understanding of that now. Alright, so let's talk a
little bit about where the League is with diversity and inclusion.
It's an important topic. Of course we'll make strides and
yet we still have a long way to go. What
is your stance on that league related and, more importantly,
your stance with regard to the Philadelphia Eagles? Yeah, well,
(36:10):
all you have to do is see the progress we've
made really over the last twelve, thirty six months, and
it is huge. Right. It's it's incremental. It's like it's
growing and growing and growing, and I think it's it's
based on the talent level. Just like you talk about,
you know where you're getting players from. Like your pool
(36:30):
is increasing because there are people who are more in diverse,
people who are interested in being in the national football league,
who have set their career goals towards that and they
point their start towards that and they go in that direction.
And once you have those people who are talented and
smart and diverse and dedicated and determined, now you have
a pool to take from people and I think that
(36:51):
when we look at these jobs, you know, I feel
like the NFL was the last really league to just
go all right, you play to college, you come into
the NFL, you have a job. Right, all these other leagues, NBA,
Major League Baseball, NHL, E P L, they're taking the
best in the brightness, you know, they're taking people who
are really talented and they're hiring them. And I think
(37:14):
that you see that starting to happen. So what you're
what you're seeing, just like you're seeing, I guess, again,
in the corporate world. I don't know, because I've never
been in the corporate world, but they're they're hiring the
best in the brightest that are diverse, right. They're not
just looking for people who maybe just look like you
and I, you know, they're looking for the best in
the brightest all over. And really, when you think about
like the Philadelphia Eagles, Jeffrey has always been about that,
(37:37):
you know. I remember a couple of years ago there
was like an NBC today feature on Jeffrey About, you know,
our our our senior VPS on the business side. I
think we have like we have like four senior VPS
that are women on the business side, and so he's
always been about where they came from and and really
that's how I got in here, right, like I had
an UN traditional path, and so I think it's like
(37:57):
you want to pay it forward and you want to
give people the opportunity to get in who are talented,
no matter where they come from, what backgrounds they come from,
and and so that starts at the top with our ownership,
and then I feel like that that's an obligation that
I have to our community to make sure that we're
a diverse group of people. So how we let's let's
(38:17):
talk a little bit about life in general. Let's talk
about mind, body and soul. Let's talk about life balance.
Where are you on all that at this far into
your career? Sometimes people like you can't have life balance
in the NFL. What do you feel about that? Well,
it's funny. Um Ken Fraser was CEO Mark Um, one
(38:37):
of four fortune, African, American, fortune, five hundred CEOS, and
he's Um. He's from North Philly and a huge eagle
fan and we hadn't talked to our team and I
talked to him after and I said now here's a
struggle of four kids under fourteen, and he said don't
let anyone who doesn't have a big job convince you
(38:58):
that they have perfect life balance, because is not true.
Right you can't run a company, you can't run a
team and also be the perfect husband and Dad. It's
just not possible. As much as we both would like to,
you can't do it right, and so something has to go.
So one you have to have the perfect meat right.
You have to find someone who understands and understands that
(39:21):
you're doing this because you're passionate about it and you're
doing it to help your career and your life and
their life. And I think that that's the first thing,
and I have that. I mean my wife is first
pick in the draft, superstar, like at a control great right,
and so she gets that and part of it is,
you know, she we met when I was doing this,
so she doesn't know any different, right. I think that's
(39:42):
the second thing. And then and then it's about like,
you know, when you do have the moments, you know,
like when you don't come to pilly and fift and
I can spend time with my family. Um, you know,
you you have to take advantage of those moments and
you have to be able to do that. Now it
doesn't matter, you know, with this like every day that
I wake up when we're off in the next few weeks.
(40:04):
I will check my phone and every night I'll kind
of go to bed like please, phone don't ring right
because that's what that's what we have to be on
guard for. Like this, this is a tough time for
us because we're on vacation, the players are on vacation,
the staffs on vacation. Like you, don't want that call,
like you know dom. You met dom today, unbelievable best
at his job in the national football league. When his
(40:26):
when he calls me, I don't even say hello. I
said what happened, you know, and sometimes it's like no,
I just want to a great restaurant. Just want to
let you know. I'm like, I love you, man, I
love you, I love you man. But I think so.
You know, what you try to do is at least
try to be president, and when you're not mentally present
with them, you better fake the ship out of it
so they don't feel it, you know, until your mind
(40:47):
maybe going, but not to do that. And I think
part of that is just like these the phones, putting
it somewhere, just putting it somewhere. So making sure, like
I can't just go on my phone and do it,
because they're addicting. And so you you know that. All Right,
if I'm gone for two hours and I'm doing something like,
someone will get me if they're really mean. Nothing Earth
Shattering is gonna Happen at that time. But you know,
(41:09):
I think we talk about work life balance, and for
me that's like getting my mind right. So what do
I do? Like, I have to start my day doing something,
doing a workout. I have to like eat good food,
like I like eating good food. I like going to
good restaurants. You know, I got this passion for food. Right.
Do you like Tequila? I Love Tequila. Right, so you
gotta you got it. Now, you can't go crazy in
(41:29):
these jobs, right, like you know, like, but I feel
like you have to have that to what you Kinda
do is you can't be so hard on yourself that
you can't have fun. You gotta let yourself go a
little bit. And so you know that means, like, you know,
midday and I were like, all right, we gotta have
at least to day nights a month, right, like it's
just me and her and not the kids, not another couple,
just the two of us. And because there are Wednesday nights,
(41:52):
and I know you know what I'm saying, like they're
Wednesday nights during the season that you come home and
you've deale with the whole day and you've got to
get through it, not to make sure nobody sees your sweat,
and then you're shot, emotionally shot, and took go. Well,
on Saturday we got this, this and this. Can you
drive here? Can we do this? What are we doing?
And I'm like what, you know? No, I I can't,
(42:12):
I can't, I can't, I gotta go to sleep, like
I can't. And so we had so it got to
the point after where I was like, I'm going back.
When you think of something during the week, put it
on your phone and we're going to spend one home
one night and we're just gonna freaking go through it.
We're gonna roll through it, we're gonna roll through all
the things we have to catch up on. It's been
great for us because now it's like now there's sometimes
(42:34):
she's like I gotta get you, like I can't wait
till we do this. So having that and understanding like
you have to find time for the people you love
and care about, otherwise you're gonna burn out, you know.
And and we had one of the most famous coaches
of all time in terms of burnout and a great
coach and a great person. And Dick for meal, it
was still really close to the team and you probably
(42:55):
drive on freaking ninety five and you still see it
from me. It was a coaching freaking nine eighties, like
you know Hawk and something you know people love Dick
for meal, and it was because, like he had no
work life balance, like it was like a hundred miles
an hour all the freaking time. And so you don't
burn out. And these are marathons, these are not sprints.
and Um, you know, our job besides this, this period
(43:17):
of the year right now, they don't stop at the
end of the season. Right we're we're going on the
coach's offseason. That's our season, and during the season we
gotta be there to support the coaches and the players. So, Um,
you gotta find balance. You obviously have a good understanding
of a balance. Okay, I'm gonna ask you. Not Really,
but well, yeah, as good as we count. We talked
a good game, right, we talked a good game. Question.
(43:38):
It's it's easy to talk a good game. Of course
it's complicated. Okay, I'M gonna ask you the Tim Ferris
Life Style Guru question. We're a footnote hill. In the
last three to five years, what philosophy, approach, adjustment to
your life have you made that has significantly improved your life? Well,
(43:59):
I think the date night has been a huge part
for my relationship with my wife in terms of just
us finding the time, the two of us, to enjoy
each other, have fun and get back to, you know,
where we were even before we had kids, right and
I think that that's huge for us to be able to,
you know, go out on a Saturday night, make sure
we get a driver, you know, have a drink in
(44:21):
there and the two of us and talk and catch
up and, Um, you know, she looks great and you
know so you you get, you get that kind of
fun back where it's not just, you know, you come
home and you got four kids under fourteen, like that's
not always hot and sexy, no matter how good looking
you and I are, dude. You know, like it's it's
it doesn't always get us. So to have that moment
where you go out and address them, I think that's
(44:42):
been a huge part of kind of like what I've
done the last three to five years. And then I
think the second part of it is just like I
think you know, like all of us, no matter what
you say, you always worry about losing your job. And
I think when it actually happened to you, which it
really did to me in fifteen, you know, and it
happens to you like, I think the anticipation of it
(45:05):
is way worse than the reality. Like maybe you're in
the news for a couple of days and but at
the end of the day, because of the way the
news cycle works in this world, in this country, with
social media and everything is eight hours, everyone gets over.
Nobody really cares, you know, like nobody really kind of goes.
I didn't that used to be the old GMA Atlanta Falcons. Oh,
I wonder what he's doing. Is He's gonna be okay,
(45:27):
nobody cares, you know. And so I think for me
in two thousand and fifteen, going through it and kind of,
you know, being dead, you know, and and seeing how
that looks and kind of watching it and then coming
back it's like, okay, life still goes on, you know,
like it's nobody. It's okay, and so maybe not worrying
so much about that and then being able to play
(45:49):
fast and not worry so much about all the mistakes
going to make and really more so thinking like all right,
the national football league, like everything else, is like a
bell curve, and so it's the designed where everyone's here,
and so I'd rather try to be over here and
maybe risk that I'm on this side of the bell
(46:09):
curve then be stuck in the middle. That's great. One
thing I will add, however. I thought that no one's
gonna care about Thomas de Mitrof in the Atlanta Falcons relationship,
and yet Julio Jones gets traded and it's I'm the
reason that he got traded. So there's still a little
bit of critique. Yeah, that doesn't ever go away. Really,
that doesn't go and that doesn't go away until we're
really removed from that whole thing, because then it's it's
(46:33):
easy to blame, like it's easy to blame all the
bad decisions on the on and Terry and Arthur, great guys.
Arthur Arthur, great guys. So I'm not saying that for
them in particular. What I'm saying like it's easy just
to say that was their fault, that was their fault.
You know, it was a cap related issue. Julio would
be there if the captain, you know, were to be
in a different spot, which it doesn't really matter what
(46:55):
it is. It's just excuse me. But here's the funny thing,
like everyone said, is they'll do whatever it takes to
win a championship, right, and then when you do whatever
it takes a win championship and it comes with repercussions,
of course. When you do that, then it's like what
were they thinking? Well, they were thinking. They were trying
to win a championship. Good question. That's a great, great
but now very last question. If there were to be
(47:19):
one question that you feared I was going to ask
you today, what would it be? You do not have
to answer it. You know, just being in the city
and getting asked every question, being critiqued about, you know
who you are as a person and, um, your motives
and agendas. You know the personal attacks that have gone through.
It's like, Um, you know, Charlie Castle used to have
(47:41):
that GM seminar and used to talk about Jack Hen
Cook and said, you know, once you're wet, what's another drop? Um,
I wasn't worried. Wow, look, I mean what a treat
again to be around a really intelligent guy like Howie Roseman.
I mean climbing the rocky stairs, you know, with Howie
(48:03):
being there was a highlight for me as as well
as some great food in the community, he took me
right to the heart of it all and we had
some great philly food and again great opportunity to meet
with a good friend of mine and have great respect
for Howie, as competitive as we are with each other.
And it looks as though he's gonna bypass me in
total years in this league, but that's great for him.
(48:25):
I'm looking for my good buddies to to bypass the
thirteen year rank and he's doing a really good job.
So it's fun to watch that. We're on our way
from Philly all the way out to Houston to meet
with our good friend Nick Kissario. Again. Being around Nick Kissario,
you get a real chance to see how authentic he
is as a person. He is one of those guys
(48:47):
that you again want to be around. You know that
he's gonna be there for you. He's a very loyal,
trusted person and trusted friend. I had a great opportunity
to spend time with him, although he had the way
of the world old on his shoulders. There's a lot
going on down in Houston, as we all know. He
manages it. He's a very resilient person. He's going to
(49:08):
survive in life no matter how it is. You have
been listening to the GM journey with Thomas demitrop. Continue
to follow Thomas as he interviews GMS from your favorite
NFL teams. The GM journey has been produced by Alan Castenbaum,
Thomas Demittro and Octagon Entertainment. Don't forget to download and
(49:31):
subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you get your
podcast from. The GM journey is distributed by the eight
side network.
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