Howie Roseman and owner Jeff Lurie.
By Peter Gleason
By David. F. Cohen
It is instructive, dear readers, that the events of the past week in which Eagles coach Chip Kelly was essentially elevated to supreme leader and Howie Roseman was demoted to super office boy, require a new look at the Peter Principle, which essentially is defined thusly:
An observation that in an organizational hierarchy, every employee will rise or get promoted to his or her level of incompetence. The Peter Principle is based on the notion that employees will get promoted as long as they are competent, but at some point will fail to get promoted beyond a certain job because it has become too challenging for them. Employees rise to their level of incompetence and stay there. Over time, every position in the hierarchy will be filled by someone who is not competent enough to carry out his or her new duties.
“I always wanted to eventually be on the football side,” Roseman said nearly five years ago. “My first interview right out of college was for a pro personnel job with the Jets. That’s always been my love and what I really wanted to do.
“I didn’t get the job, but the Jets recommended me to the Eagles, and I started here doing salary cap. But they told me that if I worked hard and showed proficiency, I would have an opportunity to grow, and they’ve allowed me to do that.”
Make no mistake about it: Roseman loved doing personnel. Head coach Andy Reid thought highly of Howie Boy’s ability to evaluate players to endorse Roseman’s rapid ascent from director of football administration in 2003 to vice president of football administration in 2006, vice president of player personnel in 2008 and general manager in 2010.
“I love Howie ‘s energy and I’ve loved it since I’ve been here with Howie — his eagerness to grow in the profession,” Reid said back in 2010. “I’ve got a tremendous amount of confidence in his ability.”
As Reuben Frank writes on CSNPhilly.com:
Roseman never hesitated to tell writers how much he loved the scouting process. Traveling to campuses to meet with players and coaches, working the Senior Bowl and combine with his stopwatch and clipboard, and especially running the draft room.
It’s tough to tell exactly how much success Roseman had evaluating players. He’s accepted the blame for moves such as Nnamdi Asomugha and Danny Watkins, but the Eagles, under his five years as GM, had three 10-win seasons and just one losing season. More good players came through than bad players. But the bottom line is the Eagles have zero playoff wins since he became general manager.
However you measure it, this is a demotion for Roseman, who took tremendous pride in being the NFL’s youngest general manager when he was hired in 2010, and has now been stripped of the one thing he liked doing the most.
Actually, there’s one way this is not a demotion.
Roseman, according to a league source familiar with his contract, received a $200,000 annual raise on Friday, from $1.5 million per year to an average of $1.7 million per year on a deal that runs through 2020.
That’s a 13 percent pay raise for somebody who for all intents and purposes was just demoted.
And that’s $10.2 million over the next six years.
The question for Jeff Lurie and Chip Kelly is:
Why would you demote the guy and then give him a raise to $1.7 million a year?
Isn’t that God’s way of telling you that you have too much money to throw around?
