Jeffrey Lurie Has to Cancel his Soap Opera

The Eagles owner needs to step in and clearly define roles for the Eagles' brass

PHILADELPHIA — Contrary to any rumors, Eagles Entertainment is not taking production for "Days of Our Lives" in-house.

The organization doesn't need it because it has its own version of a soap opera greenlighted by Jeffrey Lurie's much-ballyhooed collaborative approach nearing the end of its shelf-life in advance of Monday night's game against the team Philadelphia never beats, the Seattle Seahawks.

The owner himself refused to travel to Cleveland in Week 11, spun as coronavirus concerns in advance of visiting his mother on Thanksgiving but perhaps further fueled of reported "disgust" at team practices.

General manager Howie Roseman seems to be taking a Machiavellian approach to his personnel powers, making his head coach look impotent and often misinformed as he heads to the podium (or the 2020 version of a Zoom studio) to contradict himself as the voice of this mess.

Then you have personnel.

Pulling the plug on All-Pro- right tackle Lane Jonson's injury-ravaged season far too late, moving the aging Jason Peters inside to further evaluate Jordan Mailata, and Zach Ertz seemingly slow-walking a return to this circus with a high-ankle sprain.

And finally, you get to the quarterback. A mechanical and shell-shocked mess who shows a closer resemblance to Mitchell Trubisky these days than Aaron Rodgers.

Every flow chart in business has a distinct leader for one inescapable reason - someone has to be responsible for making the toughest decisions and no new-age enlightenment or corporate-speak will ever change that end game.

The buck has to stop somewhere.

Lurie has been lauded for staying out of football operations for the most part until he has to step in. That time is now and the owner has some tough decisions to make when it comes to his fractured setup which to date has favored Roseman, his right-hand man who regained power only after the Lurie set him adrift to the other side of the NovaCare Complex in a calculated attempt to allow snake-oil salesman Chip Kelly to sink or swim.

This time, Lurie personally likes all three main characters in his soap opera: Roseman, Doug Pederson, and Wentz. But, all three aren't performing so it's the owner's job to root out why.

And the easiest way to do that is clearly-defined roles.

Get Roseman out of the way in-season. He shouldn't be concerning himself with practice-squad elevations or game-day inactives. And the GM surely shouldn't have an imprint on the game plan of a Super Bowl-winning coach.

Pederson's biggest mistake was not seizing more power at his height after winning Super Bowl LII.

For the most part, the coach has remained egoless understanding that the job of head coach/GM is too big for any one man. He's consistently claimed he doesn't want personnel power and just wants to coach.

That's an admirable ideology when everyone is on the same page and pulling in the same direction but that no longer seems to be the case.

In the week leading up to Monday's game, Pederson spent a large portion of it contradicting himself.

There was his hesitation regarding Wentz before being thrown a life raft and seemingly settling on the much-maligned QB1 as his starter. He labeled Peters the starting left tackle moving forward until yet another mid-week example of not showing the courage of one's convictions.

Those instances, much like Pederson's awkward 180 regarding former offensive coordinator Mike Groh where the coach expressed Groh would be back only to change his mind 24 hours later after being "convinced" by Lurie, paint a picture of a coach with no real power.

The worst-case scenario here is that Pederson is being trotted out in front of the microphone before the owner and Roseman have laid out their plans for him leaving the entire coaching staff flying blind during at least some of the preparation period. Something

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of the Eagles' lives.

John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Tuesday and Thursday on "The Middle" with Eytan Shander, Harry Mayes, and Barrett Brooks on SportsMap Radio and PhillyVoice.com. He’s also the host of Extending the Play on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

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