Brookover: Eagles on another demolition mission

No new reports have surfaced yet about which side of the NovaCare Complex Howie Roseman is working from these days. It was big news last year around this time when Chip Kelly took control of the Eagles' football operations - at least we all thought he did - and Roseman's nameplate was removed from the office that was in the same wing as Kelly and Ed Marynowitz, the coach's handpicked decision-making assistant.

Regardless of Roseman's office location, he obviously has risen and returned as the man in charge of putting together the roster. What's interesting here in the embryonic stage of the NFL offseason is that wherever Roseman is working from, he apparently stumbled upon the handbook and hand grenades Kelly used to put together the unforgettable 2015 Eagles.

That template started with the Eagles getting Sam Bradford as their quarterback. Remember, he never would have been available via trade with the then-St. Louis Rams if not for those pesky ACL injuries that limited him to seven games total in 2013 and 2014. Kelly had to have Bradford if the Eagles were going to clear the 10-6 hurdle that looked OK on paper but left the team and their coach far from their desired destination.

Insert Bradford, pull pin, and blow everything else up.

That, of course, was not Kelly's plan. It just appeared that way when LeSean McCoy, Jeremy Maclin, Evan Mathis, Brandon Boykin, and others were shown the door even though they had been among the team's most valuable players during Kelly's first two seasons.

We all know what happened after that, which is why Kelly is out in San Francisco and Roseman rules again at One NovaCare Way.

Recently, there seems to be a rush to pat Roseman on the back for a job well done this offseason, which is the mindless equivalent of grading an NFL draft five minutes after it has been completed.

Roseman has done the job, I'll give him that much credit. Let's wait a while to grade it.

It is clear that he likes the players whom he was fully or partly responsible for bringing in before his brief loss of power to Kelly last offseason. Zach Ertz, Brent Celek, Lane Johnson, Vinny Curry, Najeh Goode, and Malcolm Jenkins all received contract extensions.

The grenades, meanwhile, fell upon the guys whom Kelly infamously added to the roster last season. By the time demolition Monday was over, disgruntled running back DeMarco Murray had been traded to the Tennessee Titans and the underachieving duo of Byron Maxwell and Kiko Alonso had been sent to the Miami Dolphins.

Kelly surrendered a boatload of money and McCoy to get that trio into Philadelphia last season and it seemed unlikely that Roseman would be able to move the big contracts of Murray and Maxwell after one season. He did that and you can applaud the moves if you'd like.

Out in San Francisco, however, Kelly might be thinking that Roseman has thrown out the baby with the bathwater, a gesture the former coach warned against during the worst of times last season. It's possible he's right.

"We lost two games," Kelly said in the middle of a three-game losing streak to the less-than-formidable trio of Miami, Tampa Bay, and Detroit. "I think sometimes people panic and throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think we have a really good football team, and I'm very confident in those football players."

He was wrong about the overall team and the coach's distribution of carries showed an obvious lack of confidence in Murray as the season wore on. Still, Murray is only a year removed from winning the NFL rushing title in Dallas and maybe it would have been worthwhile for new coach Doug Pederson to give the two-time Pro Bowl player a call to try to convince him that Philadelphia would be a better place in 2016. Pederson said last week during the Bradford news conference that he had not spoken to Murray and by that time he had already been the team's head coach for six weeks.

Maxwell, meanwhile, represented an upgrade over Cary Williams last season even if he did not live up to the six-year, $63 million contract he received to leave the comfort of being part of Seattle's all-star defensive backfield.

Perhaps new defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz watched film of Maxwell and told Roseman he was expendable. Tuesday's transaction that brought in veteran cornerback Leodis McKelvin on a two-year deal would lead you to believe Schwartz has the ear of Roseman, and that is a good thing. Despite being limited to 10 games in 2014 by a fractured ankle, McKelvin had his most productive season with Buffalo when Schwartz spent his only year there as the Bills' defensive coordinator. He finished with a career-high four interceptions.

We do not know what the Eagles are getting in return for the players they traded, but it's probably going to be later-round draft picks. We also do not know what Roseman is going to do with the extra salary-cap space created by the departures of Murray and Maxwell.

We do know that the foundation for the 2016 Eagles is still Bradford, the one guy Kelly and Roseman seemed to agree upon. We also now know that neither personnel chief is afraid of demolition projects.

bbrookover@phillynews.com

@brookob