Mr. Scot

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.

I suspect the 2023-24 Mayfield story ends next week.

Allen may be overrated. He is genuinely good, at least. This comment about Dan Campbell, though...

Word this morning that Jason Kelce will retire. Besides him, the Eagles have a lot of good free agents. Someone elsewhere speculated this could be a really bad offseason for them. Mind you, I'd take Jeff Stoutland in a heartbeat.

Or getting the top job in Dallas.

Rhule

I'd be one of them. I think Belichick is done.

Honestly think it's just that as the season wire on, the Eagles increasingly looked like sh-t.

It's what he understands. He doesn't get football.

Is it, though?

Official...

If you read the excerpts from Kapadia's article, Halaby is absolutely mentioned as part of the problem. It was whether or not McLane mentioned him or not that I don't know. As to Halaby being something special candidate-wise, yeeeah...no. His resumé isn't anything special.