Eagles' GM Needs To Drop Troubling Theme

Mistakes with personnel evaluation are baked into the bottom line with every team.

Eagles LB Devin White / Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

PHILADELPHIA - Howie Roseman’s resume is accomplished enough and his job security secure enough to stop playing games.

The saga of Devin White in Philadelphia has continued into the bye week for no obvious reason othan than $3.5 million of guaranteed money.

You hate to be flippant because that’s significant money in the real world. In the modern NF, the truth in that kind of money is easily written off in an industry where personnel evaluation errors are baked into the bottom line.

Eagles on SI was told that the idea that the Eagles were “counting on White” or believed they put one over on the rest of the league by getting to the clearance aisle first for a player whose production never matched his reputation in Tampa Bay is specious.

In fact, the belief inside the building is that Philadelphia “wanted” Nakobe Dean to seize the job all along with the idea the organization didn’t want to hand it to the third-year starter after doing that in 2023 when Dean struggled in limited playing time before suffering a Lisfranc foot injury that derailed his sophomore season completely.

White was the de facto starter for the offseason but Dean wasn’t even given the all-clear from the doctors until minicamp.

In training camp, Philadelphia defaulted to White and fellow free-agent acquisition Zack Baun before the desired outcome unfolded. Dean took the baton on the final leg of the race and dusted the competition.

And Vic Fangio hid that reality in plain sight with more than a few focused on the first daily rep with the starters vs. the totality of reps with the starters.

Once White was out of the equation to start, he was out of the Eagles’ plans all together because the backup LBs – Ben VanSumeren, rookie Jeremiah Trotter Jr., and veteran Oren Burks – are all helpful to special teams coordinator Michael Clay.

And no one seems to want to broach that idea to White, who only played special teams once during COVID circumstances because of his stature as a college superstar at LSU and his deference as the No. 5 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.

Complicating matters further is that Dean has performed poorly over the first four games of the season with five missed tackles and a 131.9 passer rating allowed in coverage per Pro Football Focus.

Of the 72 LBs who’ve played enough to be ranked, Dean is near the bottom at No. 67 per PFF.

In regular-season mode where reporters can only watch stretching and some individual work it’s tough to ascertain how VanSumeren and Trotter are developing behind the scenes to potentially push Dean if the latter continues to perform poorly.

White, meanwhile, isn’t even being discussed after missing Week 1 in Brazil due to an injury that copped up out of nowhere (do the math there) and his Week 4 return to Tampa for personal reasons.

It all smacks of Roseman hanging on in the hopes desperation takes hold elsewhere and a conditional late-round pick is lurking before the Nov. 4 deadline, the same tired thought behind James Bradberry’s extended stint on the irrelevancy list and even rookie receiver Ainias Smith's limbo. Smith was stashed on injured reserve and unable to practice so the Eagles GM didn’t have to raise his hand and say “mistake” with a fifth-round pick.

Sometimes you just need to take your medicine.

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