Lurie: Howie running front office; gambled on Chip's vision, 'end result was mediocrity'

Eagles chairman Jeffrey Lurie said former general manager Howie Roseman will again head the team's front office, with the title of executive vice president of football operations. Former senior advisor Tom Donahoe will run the personnel department, under Roseman, even after the Eagles hire a coach to replace Chip Kelly, fired Tuesday evening.

Lurie said he isn't necessarily looking for a certain type of coach -- college or NFL – and that he wanted his search committee to get a head start on vetting candidates. He said he did not give Kelly the option of giving up personnel control and staying – their meeting Tuesday was for Lurie to convey to Kelly that he was being dismissed.

Lurie said when he gave personnel control to Kelly a year ago, after back-to-back 10-win seasons, he realized there were dangers in trying to make big changes, that the team could slide into mediocrity while trying to go from "good to great."

"The end result was mediocrity," said Lurie, whose team is 6-9 heading into Sunday's season finale at the Giants. "As the owner of the team I've got to look at the progress and the trajectory of where it's headed."

Lurie said he also wanted to use this week to talk to players about what they feel has been lacking, and "be a sponge for what is leadership like in today's football world … it's very, very different than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago."

Lurie talked repeatedly about the virtues of collaboration among leaders, which is something we might infer Kelly wasn't big on. He mentioned his next coach as someone who would understand and enjoy the passion of Eagles fans, something else that could have been a veiled critique of Kelly, who was very private and who told reporters he didn't see why there were always so many of them around, that other cities had fans who cared about their teams just as much or more.

Lurie said demoting Roseman and giving Kelly personnel control last year when the coach asked for that was to make Kelly accountable – to ensure that he couldn't say he wasn't given what he said he needed to succeed.

Roseman declined to speak with reporters, through an Eagles spokesman.

Lurie said this was "one of the most disappointing seasons I''ve ever endured."