Analytically-Challenged? Former Eagles' Exec Hit A Traditionalist Glass Ceiling

One of the biggest surprises of the Eagles' offseason was former assistant general manager Alec Halaby, one of Howie Roseman’s more trusted advisors for nearly two decades, leaving the organization.

A very sharp individual, the Harvard-educated Halaby carried himself with the kind of self-assurance you might imagine that degree might provide.

Halaby was in the Eagles’ organization through four different head coaches – Andy Reid, Chip Kelly, Doug Pederson, and current mentor Nick Sirianni.

League and team sources confirmed the first three kept the young executive at arm’s length, and Pederson, in particular, barely spoke to Halaby for years, and intermediaries were used to communicate.

The “non-football guy” discourse permeated heavily through that reality.

It wasn’t necessarily a pushback against “analytics” though. Pederson was at the forefront of what’s now become the normalized fourth-down aggression around the NFL in 2017, a key component to the franchise’s Super Bowl LII championship.

Sources say the men spearheading the football side of the organization didn’t like Halaby’s presentation for the most part, perhaps confusing self-confidence with a lack of humility.

That impacted relationships.

The personnel side was the opposite. Roseman obviously valued Halaby greatly as he climbed the ladder to assistant GM, and owner Jeffrey Lurie was also firmly in Halaby’s corner.

Multiple NFL sources confirmed that Sirianni had a much better relationship with Halaby than his predecessors.

Last season, though, when Sirianni’s availability was impacted by taking on a larger role in the weeds with a struggling offense, his time became more limited and ancillary issues had to be put to the side.

Since being promoted to assistant GM in 2022, Halaby was able to generate several GM interviews, including discussions with Washington, Carolina, the New York Jets and Miami but never crossed the finish line.

The Flame Out

He also likely wasn’t helped by the flameout of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, an analytics-branded GM, in Minnesota.

While the NFL is more and more accepting of analytics these days, it’s by no means Major League Baseball or the NBA, and the vast majority of powerbrokers remain traditionalists.

Halaby did his best to round out a skill set built on the foundation of analytics, working extremely hard to become a more knowledgeable scouting presence through extensive film study.

Ultimately, though, the job of NFL GM has largely become one of consensus-building, and while the pushback against analytics-heavy candidates has lessened, the traditional scouting background is still the preferred way to go for most NFL organizations.

While it was a light year for GM vacancies around the NFL, all three hired: Miami’s Jon-Eric Sullivan, Atlanta’s Ian Cunningham (a former Eagles’ personnel executive), and Minnesota’s Nolan Teasley all came from scouting backgrounds.

Halaby simply topped out in an analytically-challenged environment where his inability to bridge two worlds stopped the momentum before he crossed the finish line.

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