Howie Roseman: I’m Working on Building Relationships

Howie Roseman spoke to the media yesterday after Doug Pederson’s introductory press conference, and we had some bits and pieces of that here. Among the things discussed was Roseman taking last year to work on his people’s skills, something apparently Chip Kelly didn’t feel the need to do. That might tell you all you need to know right there.

But Roseman was remarkably transparent, at least in my opinion, when talking to reporters and explaining that he wanted to built better relationships not only with the people in the organization, but people in the league. And, let’s face it, he needs to. He has one of the worst reputations in the league, anyway.

CSN’s Reuben Frank has some more on Roseman’s comments.

I think when this happened last year, this was something I took to heart,” he said. “And I think it goes back to what was really important to me and that was the relationships, so how can I build better relationships? I didn’t put my head in the sand and just say, ‘Everyone’s wrong.’ I felt like I had to look into myself and figure out a way to make people know I cared about them and make time for relationships.
 
“Sometimes when you’re in your job, when you’re in a busy job, you kind of overlook some of those things, and I felt that that wasn’t the right thing to do and how was I going to work on that, and I thought that was the most important thing because I care about a lot of people here. They’re family to me. So for people not to know how you feel, whether that’s your friends or your family, that’s hurtful to me.”

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Whether he knew he would be re-promoted after last season:

“No, I had no idea what was going to go (on),” he said. “I just felt like I needed to come in every day and be positive and be supportive. I’ve been very fortunate in the National Football League about how my career has been and so I took it as an opportunity to work on some things that maybe I hadn’t had a chance to work on because I was too busy doing whatever the role is. And that’s not an excuse, but I felt like it was an opportunity for me to do that and work on things and I feel very fortunate that I had the opportunity to do that.”

On building relationships:

I learned that the relationships are really important to me, that the people are really important to me,” he said. “And all I could do is kind of move forward here and kind of just work on some things through the course of the year and kind of learn from the experience and, for the first time, really step back and get some perspective of where I was at and the things that I needed to work on to do that.
 
“It doesn’t always go perfect in life. A smart guy told me that everyone views success as a straight line, but the reality of it is it’s up and down. It’s all part of a growing process you have to go through.”

On the criticism of his risky draft picks and free agent signings:

Yeah, there’s no question it’s hard on your family,” he said. “It’s much harder on your family than it is on you, because you signed up for this. This is the job you had. There’s no question about it, that a big part of this year was about spending time with them. I know people who have kids, or are in the process of having kids, understand that that’s what you hurt the most for. We’re big boys and girls in this. We understand that with responsibility comes accountability, comes criticism, but in this world that we’re in now, it’s hard to keep your kids away from it. That’s a hard thing. It’s a hard thing to explain to your children about what’s going on.”

On Marcus Smith:

I’ll take responsibility for everything that happened when I was the general manager here,” he said. “I’m happy to take responsibility for all that.”
 
Including Marcus Smith?
 
“Yes,” he said.

Well, Roseman’s words are fascinating to finally hear, but I’m not sure it makes anything better, or makes anyone feel better. It’ll be interesting to see if this newfound “relationship building” mantra Roseman is spewing actually works. At this point, one might think NFL executives just threw their papers up and said, “Screw it!” if they had to deal with him. We know old Eagles coaches have.