The night before the 2016 NFL draft, Eagles EVP of football operations Howie Roseman called agents Bruce and Ryan Tollner, with his boss, team owner Jeffrey Lurie, also on the line. Philadelphia, who traded up twice to land the No. 2 pick in that draft, already knew what it was doing 24 hours later, but Roseman wanted to talk anyway.
During his gap year in 2015, Roseman dove into a study of team-building that led him to a conclusion—if he ever had a chance to run NFL operation again, he’d need to build it around a quarterback.