Franklin: Howie Roseman Is A Hall Of Fame Exec

Chris, how are you, man? Hey, you're doing great, man. Thanks very much for having me on.

It was a crazy day. I'm sure you now, I'm glad that you're here with us living and in the flesh. You didn't get, you didn't get hit by any beer bottles or cans. You okay? Yeah, you know, I can mark myself safe on social media.

Um, I, I survived the beer can throwing of 2025. Um, yeah, everything's fine with that, but yeah, it was, that wasn't the only one that was thrown. There was a lot of it thrown, especially in the crowd. People love to share, apparently, especially when they start to climb stuff.

So yeah, it was kind of a, it's an interesting day for sure. So before we get to the parade, maybe you can help all of our listeners across the country understand. What is the deal with people in Philadelphia climbing poles to celebrate? Like, is it just now a tradition? Like, they gotta grease the poles to keep people off. What's the deal?

It sounds like a waste of taxpayer money. I think it's twofold, because there's an Italian tradition. They have a festival every year down in South Philadelphia, where they climb the poles. It may take back to going back to Italy and things like that, but everybody helps everybody else to climb the pole. But I also think now that once it happened the first time, especially in 08, when the Phillies won the World Series, I think that really started the trend. And you can expect now, if the team at least gets to, say, the championship round, whether it be the World Series, the Super Bowl, you know at least there's going to be some climb pole.

And then if they win, then you get a bonus week of it afterwards. Oh my God. All right.

Whatever gets the job done. Now, a lot of the images that I saw earlier today, Chris, we had people throwing up at 9am, 10am before the parade even got rolling. I mean, we saw some of the video and images. Howie Roseman's head now has that beer can imprint on it. Cooper DeGene cut himself with his own chain. What's the craziest thing that you saw on the parade route?

Or maybe it was something delightful. What did you see today? Well, I'll start with a crazy...

I'll do one of both. The crazy one was somebody actually climbed one of the bigger street lights in Eakins Oval area. That's this area where the media was staged at to watch directly at the stage, if you're watching on TV. So the guy climbs up to it, he sits in the middle of it, and somehow there's a very big bottle. It looked like it was expensive alcohol that was up there. Somebody threw it up there. He caught it, miraculously, it didn't fall back in anybody, and then proceeded to take a couple of sips on it, and then let down and sat there while a party in the USA was going on. That was something that was like, okay, that was a little...

Wait a minute. So a guy sat on a pole for the actual, you know, speech portion of the parade, the rally part. This was before the speeches. This was before the parade, the parade even came down. This was before all that stuff happened. It was just sitting there jamming to the music. So this pole is, what, are we talking about a 20-foot tall pole?

I'm bad at math, and this doesn't sound like bad math. So yeah, it was a pretty tall one. It wasn't one-on-ones where you can take like, okay, like a regular street light.

This was definitely a little bit higher than that. If this guy fell over, it'd be curtains for him. Well, he might be crowd surfing. He may have had that help, but many people were there.

That's good. And what's the other thing? The other one I love is, especially, you know, you saw some law enforcement officers were dancing along with a lot of people. Some of the kids were doing that. You saw babies in there, babies, young guys and girls, toddlers.

And then once that stuff was bored, people brought footballs and they were throwing it back and forth. And you saw some of that. So I think fan-wise, yeah, there's a little bit of everything, which pretty much encapsulates Philadelphia as a whole. Well, that's good. Chris Franklin is here with us. Covers the Eagles for NJ.com was out at the parade today. You know, there was a little bit of a hope. I love the marketing and the branding by Jordan to, you know, incorporate Hertz's last name into all the media.

City of brotherly love and love hurts. That was great. Does this man have a personality or is he just like this all of the damn time? He's just so even, even in celebration.

He does have a personality, and that's one thing that endears him with. It was really fun to watch the miked up sessions because a lot of times we don't have access to that stuff. So you hear him the way he talks with his teammates, even in the locker room, sometimes he was from what we've heard, let's lose a little bit in terms of it was nothing like, Hey, what's going on?

Like some of the other guys that happened. That's just him. Like when you see the media is real reserved, laid back intentional on what he wants to say. I thought one thing that I saw today in terms of his speech, he opened up a little bit talking about how he never wanted to go up to the Rockies, what have you.

So it's there. He just doesn't share it publicly a lot in your time and covering the Eagles. Have you noticed a change in Jalen or has he been kind of steady from his leadership? We know this is really the first season that he hasn't that he's really had to take more of a command on the offense. I look at it like I've covered it since 2020 and I got, and that was a shock that night to, I wasn't doing it then I came in August, that was a shock when he was drafted then, but I've gotten to see him basically get older and mature into an NFL player, an NFL player. And when you look at it, this has always been him. He's been always reserved in real quiet and just goes about his business in terms of that. But in terms of leadership, that's always been there.

In fact, he bought, the veterans bought in when he took over. That was kind of shocking, even back in 2020 in that game against the Cardinals. The Cowboys, that was one of the biggest takeaways. They're like, wow, this guy's really mature beyond his years and he's able to adapt that. And I think the biggest thing he's done is he's, if anything, this season is that he started to talk a little bit, like work a little bit more with a lot more of his teammates. And I think he got a little more into weeds and looking at worrying about doing the quarterback position stuff and reached out to basically say, hey, reach out and connect with your teammates a little bit more.

And that one, a little bit more than that. And he's paid off. You see, he took dealing with the offensive line, going out with the defensive backs, what have you. He's doing a lot of things to make sure that he tries to be that leader that is needed, especially at the quarterback position.

Chris Franklin is here with us from NJ.com. Howie Roseman is beloved. Despite the mark on his head from that beer can, this man is now beloved. They were chanting his name.

I remember a few seasons ago drafting guys like Jalen Rager. This guy was kind of he's kind of hated. I mean, despite the fact that he won a Super Bowl, people were looking at him going, hey, man, you're screwing us up.

We had a chance to continue. Has he been vindicated in a certain type of way? Yeah, everybody loves him now. I think the vindication happened, the initial vindication happened in 18, especially when he was banished to the other side of an overcare complex when Chip Kelly said, hey, you know, not 2018, excuse me for that.

When he won the first Super Bowl, I think that's when his vindication happened after Chip Kelly banished him when he was a head coach there. The 2020 Jalen Rager one, I think that really was a collaborative one from what I've heard. There were some other people that really wanted to put him in there to make it a better fit. So it wasn't all him, but ultimately he's the one that finished the card.

It may have been a skiing thing in terms of that from what I've heard. I think the biggest one especially was the 20, I think especially the vindication from last year with the collapse. I think that was a bad taste in his mouth, seeing what happened with that. And helping along with that and seeing like, hey, you know what, you need to add some more impact guys. He's looking at what he reeled off this past offseason. Saquon Barkley, you look at, even if you look back at even his last three third round picks that he had, they're all contributed. They all played at least one play in the Super Bowl and they're contributors. So I think overall, I think the vindication happened long ago is now it's just he's just submitting himself like, hey, you know what? Well, it's his name and he's actually the branch of the Hall of Fame. I think he's done that well of a job over a long period of time that it warrants consideration when he decides to hang it up and move on to something else.

Chris, I agree with you. You think about two Super Bowls and this obviously is a team that's built to last, especially given their youth. They are the favorites to go ahead and win the Super Bowl again next year. What are some potential changes that we might see in the offseason? We know Zach Bond is a free agent. Are they letting him go? Probably not. What else could we expect?

What changes can we see? Well, you also got to worry about your head rushing position, too, because you got some questions you got going on there. You got the only people they have, you know, for sure, are Nolan Smith and Jalen Hunt. And they're both young, still in the rookie contracts. Bryce Huff underperformed and didn't do as well as a good job so much so that he's an actor for the Super Bowl.

And then you have Brandon Graham. You don't know if he's coming back or not for another year or not. If he's going to retire or say, you know, I'm going to try to come back one year. He's 37, right? He said he said it today.

He's going to be 37. And the scary thing is, he was at one point earlier in the season, he was their best defensive end. The way he was playing and rushing edges, like, I wonder if he got the proverbial knock on the thing, like, hey, we need to see some of the sample.

All right, cool. But he's clean because he's doing that well. And you also got to look at Josh Sweat. And I guess he, besides Baughan, I think a lot of teams are going to go after Josh Sweat. And so he was going to have to create some catch space. There's a lot of guys who turn that and you got to worry about off the side of Baughan in terms of Makai Becton.

So, yeah, those are, I'm watching specifically Makai Becton, Josh Sweat, and Zach Baughan because I think Zach Baughan is going to be taught after a lot. There's a lot of teams out there, like New England Patriots have a lot, a lot of money. And you look at a guy like that, maybe Adam on defensive-minded like Vrabel, but from what we were talking to Baughan yesterday, he likes Philly. He just wants to see, hopefully, the deal and the money works out.

I certainly can imagine. Chris Franklin here with us from NJ.com, covers all things Eagles. Nick Sirianni, today, he was also short into the sweet. The fans seemingly now have an affinity. A couple of months ago, he was cursing some out at a game.

And today, he's beloved. How long does that last? Week one of the 2025 season? If the 20 teams perform poorly and they come out sluggish in the opening night, they'll probably start there. Your view from Murmur is around there.

I don't think there will be a full throttle boo there going on. But, yeah, you look at the job, it is steady. Head coaching is tough no matter what you did. And looking at, you think about where you started, and everybody's looking at that opening press conference.

The biggest thing I always look at is the key to that one, too. If you can communicate and get your point across as the veterans buy in. Because we've seen so many guys that can scheme up the world, Adam Gase, and do all this stuff. And then when it comes time to actually leading everybody to have a certain vision or goal, they can't do it.

And they're out in two, three years, what have you. But the one thing that Sirianni has always done since he's been here is he's been able to find one thing to be able to get these guys to connect. Because there's 53 different personalities on our roster.

Good luck. That's a tough thing to manage. But he finds some way to ease or smooth some things over or have a certain message that everybody buys in. It's funny that everybody laughs at it now, but when everybody was talking about the Flowers speech in 2021, growing roots and everything, that galvanized him to go through the playoffs.

I think the team fed off of that and that's led to this sustained run. So he's done a good job. He's going to get paid a lot with his extension because he's got one year left and he's definitely not going to be a lame duck head coach.

So it's crazy. Well, it's good for him that Nick Sirianni, he's going to bump that salary up from seven mills. I guess they're going to tack on another three or four or five. Well, Chris, I'm glad you made it out of that parade.

Unfortunately, we heard at the end that there were two women that were shot. We don't know the details on that. It's tough to kind of measure things by that.

But all things considered, good crowd, good environment, good people, good fun. Oh, yeah, it was a lot. It was most like this, especially with the Eagles having gone so long from not winning a Super Bowl. So now it's one of the things where he started to get some of those older generations that were saw like the 62, which they were starting to go away. And you want to keep create those memories and stuff. You hear them tell tales.

Well, I saw Lauren Van Rockland, I saw these guys. And now you look at it, you have this new generation of people in Philadelphia that are experiencing getting used to winning, which for a long time didn't happen at all. So stuff like this, they'll cherish that. It's unfortunate what happened with that shooting and you wish some people just like, okay, calm this down. It's not bad. All day is supposed to be a joyous celebration. But for, I probably say a good 95, 96% of the people out in that crowd, everybody did everything they were supposed to do.

Yeah, I hear that. And I think 90% of the people who attended probably sleep right now. They're in trouble. Valentine's Day, they're asleep already.

Good luck. Well, maybe they've been out there with their significant other. Maybe they're all sleeping.

A lot of intoxicated people out there. I don't know that much. Hey, Chris, thank you so much for the time. Where can people follow you and your work at NJ.com? Yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you very much for having me on. You can follow me on stories I write on NJ.com slash eagles. If you go to X, Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, see Franklin News, C-F-R-A-N-K-L-I-N News, and I'll be there. Hey, Chris, enjoy the rest of the off season.

There's only one champs and you're covering them, all right? Sounds great. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.