Mr. Scot

Lemme flip the question... If you were a fan of another team and you had seen what happened with us regarding the whole "Hunger Games" thing this past season, would you want your team to hire somebody from the Panthers? I'd agree we need somebody who's strong enough to stand up to Tepper, but I prefer it be someone who doesn't use underhanded tactics. And for the record, the guy I would most recommend as fitting that description is Ed Dodds.

Firing Fitterer just because you fired Rhule was always a stupid argument. Likewise, judging Fitterer without context of the situation / transition was flawed. What I had hoped for was time for Reich and Fitterer to work and grow together, but given what we know now that was never going to happen. I also see again that you're going with the tactic of accusing your debate opponent of the things that you actually do. Granted that works sometimes, but it's weak

I'd laugh

Not really, but I'm used to you mischaracterizing my ideas to make it easier for you to argue with them

Probably helps to be a little clearer on my part here... Howie Roseman isn't a great personnel guy or a great coach, but what he has been good at in the past is hiring people who were. Unfortunately between he and Jeffrey Lurie, he's also part of a culture that tends to undermine those guys and shoot its own wounded. That's definitely not something I want to import here.

I have no idea whether I'm smarter than you. Nor would I claim to be such. And that's not the point of the discussion. Yes, guys with great resumés fail while guys with mediocre resumés succeed. Lord knows I've seen players, coaches, and executives follow paths that I never would have predicted. That's why I don't claim to be Miss Cleo. I will admit up front that I don't want any of the analytics guys because I just don't buy that sort of thing working. Unfortunately, that's likely the direction we're heading because...Tepper. However, none of those other guys strike me with the kind of huge negatives that Halaby does. And no, it isn't just this story. The Eagles under Lurie and Roseman have a history of dysfunction that makes even David Tepper look like a professional. That's my thing here. It's not about you. I definitely disagree with your argument but I'm not going to stand here and suggest that I'm always right or you're always wrong. My apologies if it comes off that way.

Sure... except it's not. I should add it's also not just one article. There's plenty of info out there about the dysfunction going on with the Eagles. But that's beside the point. When a story is out there, and a pretty well sourced and documented story at that, saying "well, we don't know" or "I'm not worried about it" isn't a rebuttal. It's a denial. I could also point out that a personal attack like this isn't exactly moderation, but hey...

Well, that's mature of you So basically, let others post their opinions but don't post mine... Yeah, sure

He's apparently been a pretty good coach too.

What specifically were the "fine points"? Would you suggest the reports that have come out are false or misleading? Based on what? (that they're negative towards somebody you might like isn't a good enough reason) And to be clear, when I say research I'm not just talking about work history. We've got a full story here about some pretty negative behavior, but listening to that is somehow "guesswork" and ignoring it is a positive? Same offer: Give me something that's positive enough about Halaby to counteract the stories. I'm happy to listen.

If you say so You're free try and refute the argument, of course. By all means, tell me anything and everything positive you've read about Halaby that makes you think he's the right guy and this other stuff won't matter. And specifics to Halaby himself, please. Association with the Eagles isn't good enough. Using that logic you could argue for Brian Johnson as our head coach. Whadda ya got? (and FYI, responding that I wouldn't listen anyway or that it's all just guesswork is basically an admission that you don't really have anything and you're just buying into the spin)

I have no problem with people liking different candidates. But yeah, if you can read everything that's been written with about Halaby to this point and still say "that's the kind of guy we need", I can't help you. Jeffrey Lurie is at this point what David Tepper wishes he was, and not in a good way. Wanting to emulate that kind of environment is not something I can sign up for. Call it guesswork if you want, but there's a lot less "guessing" involved when you actually take the time to research the candidates.

For the folks who don't have a subscription to The Athletic, here's a free article that quotes and summarizes a lot of the writeup by Kapadia and company: Making sense of the latest report of Eagles' dysfunction The excerpt most pertinent to this discussion... Who is Alec Halaby? One of the more interesting (and new) parts of The Athletic story is about Alec Halaby, the Eagles’ vice president of football operations and strategy. Basically, Halaby is the head of the Eagles’ analytics department. We don’t hear a ton about him on a daily basis, but he has an important role within the organization. According to the story, a “rift” grew between Halaby and members of the Eagles’ coaching and scouting departments. “Within the building, he’s perceived as Howie’s guy,” said one source. “That’s a problem. … No coach wants somebody around who they think is undermining the perception of how well they’re doing.” To some, Halaby is something of an interloper. They say he carries influence with Lurie in part because of a close relationship with fellow Harvard grad Julian Lurie, Jeffrey’s son, who stands to one day take over the family business. To others, Halaby is “brilliant” and simply willing to fight for what he believes is right. The more nuanced opinion is that Halaby is in a “no-win situation,” boxed into a specific characterization by the non-traditional football background he shares with Roseman and a personality that makes him a “square peg in a round hole.” The blurriness of Halaby’s influence on the final decision-makers created rifts throughout the organization and contributed to the iciness between departments. One source described the analytics team as a “clandestine, Black Ops department that doesn’t answer to anybody except the owner,” even though Halaby officially reports to Roseman. During the 2017 season, Halaby and Pederson’s relationship soured to the point where Pederson berated Halaby within earshot of the rest of the office, according to sources. In the opinion of some members of the coaching staff, Halaby was not to be trusted. There will probably always been some natural tension between analytics folks and old-school football people. That’s, in some ways, to be expected. But there has to be an effort to bridge the gap between those two sides. According to this story, Andrew Berry was brought to Philly with the expectation by some to do that. But Berry’s stay in Philly was short before he moved on to Cleveland to be their GM. And it appears that the rift remains. Analytics, by the way, aren’t going anywhere. Lurie is enamored. Yikes It almost sounds like Lurie used Halaby's analytics department like his own personal KGB to bully and intimidate the coaches into doing things his way (i.e. the analytics way). And yes, Halaby was part of that. There's in fact no indication that he was a reluctant or unwilling part of it either. So again, if that's the kind of person you want setting the culture for the Panthers, I can't help you.

It's more about the culture, honestly. Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman helped build an environment in Philly that was so toxic it led to parting ways with the first head coach to ever led the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory. The way they treated Pederson even makes David Tepper look good by comparison. Lurie and Roseman were meeting with Pederson after every game in order to lob questions and criticisms at him and pick apart is coaching job, this even after strong wins. Sound familiar? (basically, Reich's "weekly meetings" on steroids) Halaby was a direct part of that culture, detailed to be so in The Athletic's writeup, with an additional comment that part of his ascension likely owed to his being college friends with Jeffrey Lurie's son. Now, perhaps that kind of environment sounds good to David Tepper (seeing as he created a similar one here) but that doesn't work for me. But hey, some positive spin out of the PR machine is apparently enough to make some folks forget all that stuff and declare that this is the guy we really need And now, that same culture that fired Pederson is set to dump yet another coach just one year after he led them to a Super Bowl. Has Sirianni made mistakes? Yeah. So did Pederson by basically throwing the final game he coached (I suspect out of spite) but that doesn't excuse team leadership from creating that environment. I suspect another story like the ones Kapadia and McLane wrote after Pederson was dumped will hit sometime after Sirianni is fired. My only hope is we don't get those details In the wake of having hired Halaby.

For those who remember Hitman Harris...

This hurts... John follows up by naming some of the specific people.

One of the best...

Side Note: Still pissed that we never got commercials with Baker and his wife living in BOA

FYI...

Did the team we watched last night (specifically, the one that started the season 10-1 only to finish like they did) look like something you'd want to emulate? If you watched that dreck and said "you know, we need to hire people from there" I can't help you.

Rhule later said that the quarterback competition helped unite the team

Tre Boston...

For context, Kaye spent several years covering the Eagles.