Gamble ousted in Eagles' front-office rift

TUESDAY EVENING, Eagles security officials escorted Tom Gamble out of the NovaCare complex, as is protocol for fired employees, and the team's future got a whole lot more complicated.

Gamble, now 51, arrived 23 months ago from San Francisco to give general manager Howie Roseman the seasoned NFL personnel perspective many observers thought Roseman needed. Roseman had risen through the front-office ranks on the business side, though Roseman, now 39, has always seen himself as a personnel guy.

Wednesday, the Eagles announced that the team and Gamble had "agreed to part ways." In the wake of Gamble's departure, two things, at least, are apparent: Roseman's say in personnel matters is not going to be abrogated by anyone, including Eagles coach Chip Kelly, and Roseman remains the right hand of team chairman Jeffrey Lurie, the one employee Lurie trusts and values over anyone else in his organization.

Gamble said in a text that he did not wish to comment. Roseman did not respond to text messages from the Daily News.

Though Roseman tried to hire Gamble in 2012 to replace Ryan Grigson, the personnel VP who had left to become the Colts' general manager, several people with knowledge of the situation have said over the last 2 days that it was Kelly who ultimately triggered the big push for Gamble, right after Kelly arrived in 2013. Kelly wanted a personnel exec he knew and trusted. Roseman might have felt that between 2012 and 2013, he had provided himself with enough veteran savvy in former New Orleans personnel exec Rick Mueller and former Bills GM Tom Donohoe - though Roseman made a show of emphasizing his long pursuit of Gamble, when the hiring was announced.

Gamble, who grew up in Haddonfield when his father, Harry, ran the Eagles under Norman Braman, was especially amenable to coming home because Harry was ill; he passed away last January.

Gamble remade the Eagles' scouting department, in a few instances hiring veteran NFL scouts for positions Roseman had tended to fill with younger guys. It's unclear what happens with those staffers now. Roseman's influence in personnel has waxed and waned over the past several years; he called a lot of scouting shots in the final days of the Andy Reid administration. Though decisions ultimately were Reid's, Roseman would tell him, "I've examined the options and we need to do this."

Once Kelly arrived, sources have said, Roseman's role in personnel changed. Kelly, who often attends college games himself, would ask Roseman to compile information, but Kelly wanted to mull the options himself. The 2014 Eagles draft clearly bore Kelly's imprint, with the coach drafting his former Oregon stars Josh Huff in the third round and Taylor Hart in the fifth. Afterward, Kelly and Roseman told of Roseman having talked Kelly out of drafting Hart in the third; Hart, a defensive end, was the only Eagle who spent all 16 games on the 53-man roster without ever being activated.

On Monday, Kelly was asked about his relationship with Roseman. "Good," he said, and did not elaborate. Kelly also answered a question about his influence over contracts by touting Roseman's cap-management ability, suggesting that was Roseman's area of expertise.

In that same season wrapup news conference, Kelly called Gamble "a heckuva football guy." But that was in the context of answering a question about Gamble possibly interviewing for GM jobs elsewhere. Kelly said he would support Gamble, would do anything he could to help him in such a situation. Kelly seemed OK with the idea of Gamble leaving - for a GM job.

Kelly brought in a large staff of administrators and coaches, and those are the people he interacts with primarily, sources say, though unlike at Oregon, the Kelly hires don't work in a closed system in which their boss runs every aspect of the football operation. Kelly might be hindered by the fact that, unlike Roseman, he has not cultivated a close relationship with Lurie, who sits with Roseman at Eagles games and depends on the GM to decipher the team and the league for him. It might not be an exaggeration to say that Lurie sees the world through Roseman-colored glasses.

Roseman is a veteran organizational infighter who has engineered several departures over the years, including that of his mentor, former team president Joe Banner.

Sources suggest that lately, Eagles personnel matters have been heavily influenced by the coaching staff as a whole, not just by Kelly, and that Gamble was aligned with those coaches, against the scouting operation, or at least, the part of it that Roseman assembled before Gamble arrived. The coaches are not believed to hold Roseman in high regard.

Former Eagles scout Greg Gabriel touched on this point when he wrote about Gamble's departure yesterday for the online National Football Post.

"According to some in the know, the scouting department lost clout in the process, and most personnel decisions were made more on coaches' opinions rather than scouts, with Gamble siding with the coaches," Gabriel wrote.

Kelly is expected to retain his power over personnel decisions - he would not have come here without it, and he certainly isn't going to stay if he loses it - but Roseman might have a bigger influence now over the scouting staff. Which leads to the question that will dog the organization at least until Kelly speaks again: Is he going to be happy here, without Gamble? Is Roseman directing the scouting operation something Kelly can live with, wants to live with?

There is an intentional ambiguity in the way Lurie sets up his operation, with the coach and the general manager reporting directly to him. That makes it hard to say who is ultimately in charge. A year ago, when Kelly was coming off a surprise playoff appearance in his first season, it seemed pretty clear he could do anything he wanted, including telling Roseman to get rid of DeSean Jackson, the wide receiver Roseman had signed to a 5-year, $48.5 million contract extension just 2 years earlier. Now, with a three-game December losing streak and a finish out of the playoffs hung around Kelly's neck, Roseman seems ascendant.

Roseman was unable to trade Jackson, partly because of his contract, partly because the buzz around the league was that they were ready to release him if nobody gave them anything, and in the end, partly because of an NJ.com report that alleged gang ties. The Eagles concluded there was no deal to be made and released Jackson less than an hour after the report surfaced, but Jackson quickly signed with the Redskins, indicating other teams remained interested in his services. Then he helped beat the Birds in a Dec. 20 game that ended the team's playoff hopes.

Several people with knowledge of the Eagles' operation said they were thinking a few weeks ago that maybe Roseman might move on at the end of the season, but Lurie made it clear that wasn't happening, when the chairman spoke with reporters following the season finale Sunday at the Giants. Lurie ridiculed the idea that anyone would even wonder if Roseman would return.

"I see two really valued executives - Chip and Howie," Lurie said. "Add [president] Don Smolenski to that. These are three obsessed [about] being good executives. They have different roles. They cross over at different points.

"I like to surround myself with not yes men, but strong, opinionated people that are really dedicated to making us really good. And that's what those three do."

That "cross over" can get messy, apparently.

Blog: ph.ly/Eagletarian