With each passing day, the Eagles move a little bit further away from the nightmare of last year and a little closer to trying yet again to build a team that can contend for a Super Bowl instead of just talking about it.
The NFL scouting combine is next week. Free agency starts in three weeks. The draft is two months away.
Its time to start fixing.
This will be my 13th season in Philadelphia, General Manager Howie Roseman said. I will tell you that I have never had more energy or seen more energy from our building to get a season started.
You usually finish your season and everyone's trying to get away. And I think what we saw was a lot of determined people trying to get out there as quickly as possible. Now the nature of this is, we will have some free agency. We will have a draft before we get back out on the field. I think that's a great opportunity for us to kind of add to what we have. We are anxious to get back out there. We're anxious to get this taste out of our mouth and go forward and have a successful 2012.
Roseman, now beginning his third off-season as the Eagles general manager, spoke Thursday in an interview with Comcast SportsNets Neil Hartman at the Seventh Annual Sports and Entertainment Law CLE (continuing legal education) Symposium at Widener University Law School in Wilmington, Del.
I think we have a core in place that's very strong, Roseman told Hartman. I think that's refreshing. I've had some friends who have gone to other teams and taken other jobs, and they'll call back and say, I didn't realize how good maybe some of the players we had there were.
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So I don't think we're starting from scratch. I think that we have a talented team, with a great head coach. I think that's where it starts. I think it's exciting. Obviously it's a challenge. It's a challenge to go back and try to beat the Super Bowl champion that's in our division. The last two Super Bowl champions are in our conference. The competition is high, we always know the NFC East is going to be a dog fight. We're just trying to put together the best possible team we can.
Last year became even more frustrating when the Giantsa team the Eagles beat in mid-November with backup quarterback Vince Younggot into the playoffs in part because of the Eagles own ineptitude and went on to win their second Super Bowl in five years and fourth since 1986.
The Eagles? Theyre now on 51 consecutive years without a title.
We've won a lot of games and we haven't won a world championship, and that's our goal, and what we're trying to do here, so last season was a disappointment, Roseman said. It's always a disappointment when we're not the last team standing. So what we've got to do is we've got to figure out ways to improve our team.
Some of that can come in internally, from young players stepping up, some players that haven't been around us for a long time figuring out kind of what we're looking for from them, and adding some players. So that's what we're going to try and do in this offseason. We're going to try and build some continuity with some of the players that we have and having people together for a long time and try to make a step in the right direction.
The difference between the Eagles and Giants?
The Eagles scored 25 more points than the Giants last year and allowed 72 fewer.
But the Giants won one more game during the regular season, then romped their way through the playoffs to another title.
I think what it does is, it validates a lot of what we believe about Super Bowl championship teams, Roseman said. They had a great defensive line, they had a great quarterback, who played really well at a high level, and they've got a great head coach. Hopefully we have those parts, and we give ourselves a chance every year to compete.
The Giants didn't make the playoffs for two years (2009 and 2010), and then they come back, they got into the playoffs, they made a run. And what weve always said is, Lets get in the dance, and then let's get hot, and let's see what happens.
That's what happens to those teams that have won the past few years. It hasn't always been the team that's had the best regular-season record. It's the team that's gone in, and gotten hot, just gotten in the playoffs, and made the run.
One crucial thing the Eagles brass has to do is determine exactly what the season-ending four-game winning streak meant and how much stock to put into performances during those four gamesall against non-playoff teams.
Roseman said his perspective is that its a good sign that players kept fighting, but ultimately, the Eagles cant let those four wins give them a false sense of where they are.
At the end of the day, were 8-8 and didn't make the playoffs, Roseman said. So that's kind of how we base our evaluations and what we're trying to do. But on the flipside of that, we had a lot of good energy. We came together as a team, and where there were times that we could've gone in the tank and just said, I'm making my vacation plans,' they didn't do that. And I think that's a great testament to the leadership on the team, starting with Andy.
I think that's something you build on. As you talk to players here in the off-season, they talk about the great opportunity we're going to have next year. And the energy they're going to bring to the off-season process. That's hard to find this time of year. I think that's the positive in it.
But by the same token, let's not pretend that we weren't 8-8 and we didn't make the playoffs.
E-mail Reuben Frank at rfrank@comcastsportsnet.com