Howie Roseman's offseason-long quest to rid the Eagles of any remembrance or trace of former coach Chip Kelly has plenty to do with how the team is allotting its cash.
"When you look at it, some of the mistakes we've made have been going out and spending a lot of money," Roseman, the club's executive VP of football operations, told USA TODAY. "A lot of those mistakes were on guys that aren't our own. They were guys that we've brought from another organization, and we thought we knew."
Of course, some of those "mistakes" happened long before Kelly was lured away from Oregon to coach the Eagles. Roseman's fingerprints were all over the disastrous "Dream Team" of 2011, when Philly roared out of the NFL lockout to blitz the open market, throwing millions at cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, defensive end Jason Babin and defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins. None of it worked.
Kelly, though, was running the show last season when the Eagles green-lit big-money deals for running back DeMarco Murray and cornerback Byron Maxwell. One year later, neither is with the team.
Roseman -- with his power restored -- used this offseason to spend on homegrown talent he believes will carry Philly deep into the future. That philosophy led to new deals for defensive lineman Fletcher Cox, offensive tackle Lane Johnson and tight end Zach Ertz.
"We went and looked at our plan for our roster over the next couple of years and said we will never let Fletcher Cox leave the building," Roseman said. "We will never let Lane leave the building, we will never let Zach ... if we do it now, we do it a little early and maybe save on those guys and add to the team, keep as many guys around as possible. We have this core, and we can build off of that."
Said Roseman of his new-look Eagles: "We want this core group together for a long period of time. This is a group that we can go out and win games with at some point."
