Bowen: Roseman says Eagles will patiently build around Wentz

HOWIE ROSEMAN has a quarterback, does not have a DeLorean.

These were among the insights gleaned Wednesday when Roseman held a postseason news conference, his first media appearance since November and the Eagles' de facto general manager's most extensive question-and-answer session since before the 2016 season.

Many subjects were raised, but the gist, from Roseman's end, was this: Last offseason was about maneuvering to draft Carson Wentz, there wasn't a lot of opportunity, or an abundance of resources, to do much else. This offseason is about building around Wentz, a process Roseman indicated would be considerably easier had Chip Kelly not stripped the offense of playmakers. (Hence, the DeLorean reference, made when Roseman was reminiscing about the days when the Eagles' offense led the NFL in 20-yard-plus plays, instead of bringing up the rear.)

Roseman said first-year coach Doug Pederson handled a number of tricky situations well, rallied the locker room, and will continue to learn and grow.

Everybody who follows the team pretty much knew all this going in. But how are they going to build around Wentz? How do you fix the wide-receiver position? Will salary-cap concerns preclude, say, bringing back pending free-agent defensive tackle Bennie Logan? Does a team that desperately needs help at cornerback regret trading 2015 second-round pick Eric Rowe to New England, where he is a solid contributor for the 14-2 Patriots? Will there have to be a contract restructuring for the Eagles to bring back left tackle Jason Peters? Does Roseman regret the bonanza of extension deals he handed out when he returned from exile last year, deals that proved to be very generous, in some cases, in relation to 2016 production?

Specifics were hard to come by in most of these areas. Roseman said that Rowe didn't fit the Jim Schwartz scheme, and that the Eagles had projected they wouldn't re-sign him a few years down the road. He spoke glowingly of Peters as a future Hall of Famer, didn't say whether he'll be asked to restructure. He said he would like to bring back Logan, didn't give any indication of how likely that might be. He said overvaluing your draftees is a danger you can avoid by bringing "people outside this organization to look at your roster, and to give you different perspective" - which seemed to be one of a number of references to first-year player personnel vice president Joe Douglas.

Roseman tends to be a little more frank sitting around a table with a group of reporters. Wednesday, he was behind the brightly lit NovaCare lectern, on camera, taking questions after reading a prepared statement. It was formal, stilted. Meaning was conveyed through areas of emphasis, and sometimes through nuance, by what wasn't said, rather than by what was.

Roseman didn't even want to explicitly acknowledge that the Eagles desperately need to upgrade at cornerback and wide receiver.

"We're not even close to implementing all (of the comprehensive plan formulated last offseason). We're going to stick to our plan, but certainly don't want to give the answers to the test to anyone watching this or listening to this," Roseman said, when asked how he sees the team's needs.

Roseman heavily touted Douglas, who was hired after the draft last year. He painted a picture of Douglas and his staff setting the draft board and the free-agent priorities, and Roseman making decisions based on what Douglas recommends.

"He's involved in every decision we have about building this team," Roseman said.

Perhaps in a nod to criticism of the Eagles' draft record over the past decade or so, Roseman touted Douglas' Baltimore Ravens pedigree, and said: "He's got a way of looking (at) and evaluating players, that is different than what we've done in the past, and quite frankly, we needed that."

This sounded promising. In what way are Douglas' evaluations different? Roseman wouldn't say, except to indicate that the type of players the Ravens looked for "fits the way this city is built, too."

Roseman also talked a good bit about trying to build a championship team, vs. just trying to get into the playoffs. He spoke dismissively of having sought "Band-Aid" solutions, specifically at cornerback.

"There are certain things that it's almost impossible to win a championship without. I think that when I look back on some of the mistakes I made, they were about just trying to get into the playoffs, and believing that once you get into the playoffs, maybe you have a chance every year, because it's a shorter field, and you can just get hot," Roseman said.

"But really, when you look at the Super Bowl champions over the last decade . . . they all have a franchise quarterback. And your easiest way to be a perennial contender is with that.

"To have a guy like Carson makes it feel like you're doing the right thing, when you don't do a lot of Band-Aids. Are there opportunities at some point to do one-year, stopgap, hold-the-forts? Sure. I'm not sitting here saying there won't be any of those, but we have to manage our risk."

Spotrac.com shows the Eagles going into the offseason with the 29th-best cap situation in the NFL. Roseman's background is in contracts and the cap, and whatever his faults, he always made sure the Eagles had room to maneuver, before Kelly came in and usurped Roseman's power, making moves with little regard for the cap. Roseman declined be specific about the 2017 outlook. He acknowledged it wasn't what he is used to dealing with, but he also said he's long been aware of his 2017 cap projection - indicating he's had plenty of time to plan how to manage it.

Since their Super Bowl runner-up season of 2004, the Eagles haven't enjoyed a first-round playoff bye. They felt their 2008 team, which entered the postseason 9-6-1, would have beaten Arizona in the NFC title game had the game been played in Philadelphia. The 2010 and 2013 teams lost wild-card round games, at the Linc.

"Ten-and-six isn't good enough to get homefield advantage, to compete for a championship," Roseman said. "It's a huge edge to have that bye. So we have to build the team with that in mind. I think some of the things we've done over the past few years have been to get to 10-6, and that's not good enough."

The subtext here might have been that building a championship team around Wentz is going to take longer than the upcoming offseason, and that Roseman remains focused on what's best in the long term, not what might help the team a little in 2017.

"I want to be clear: This is not about me. This is about doing the right things for the Philadelphia Eagles," Roseman said. "We have to be disciplined, we have to stick to our plan, and we have to stick to our process. That has to show up in the draft. I'm sure that everyone can sit here and write about positions of need; (we) understand that. But we are going to do what's right, when you have some young, core players."

So, what is the time frame for championship contention?

"We've got a lot of work to do here in this offseason," Roseman said. "So as we sit here right now, it's hard to figure out exactly what we're going to be, because we don't know what the offseason is going to hold for us. We could have a great plan, but it's also subject to other things. We're either picking 14th or 15th (in the draft). Who is going to be there at that pick? How is free agency going to go with our own players and players going forward? But when we look at September, and Carson was the Rookie of the Month and Fletcher (Cox) was the Defensive Player of the Month, that's the kind of impact we need, certainly from those two guys."

@LesBowen

Blog: philly.com/Eaglesblog