The Eagles and race relations have come up together in the news throughout the offseason. Head coach and top organizational decision-maker Chip Kelly defended himself recently against public allegations of race-based personnel decisions made by three prominent voices — one national media pundit and two former locker room mainstays.
While there’s no evidence to suggest Kelly has reservations about coaching African American football players, there are actually more indications that Kelly encourages diversity around him.
In the past month, the Eagles have overhauled their scouting department, making several additions and promotions as the team continues to reconfigure the franchise to fit Kelly’s vision.
The facelift saw the hiring of two African Americans, including former Bears executive Dwayne Joseph as director of pro scouting, along with in-house promotions for three other African-American scouts. Louis Clark advanced to senior director of pro personnel, and Trey Brown made the sizable jump from area scout to assistant director of college scouting.
So while LeSean McCoy’s rants about Kelly's whitewashing the Eagles’ roster were taking another trip around the national headlines, the Eagles were quietly assembling the most diverse front office the team has likely ever fielded.
McCoy probably didn’t notice, but the Fritz Pollard Alliance did.
“I know they’re doing an excellent job in terms of adding diversity,” said John Wooten, chairman of the Alliance, which works hand-in-hand with the NFL to, according to its website, support a more diverse and inclusive league.
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Wooten, who served a stint as Eagles vice president/director of player personnel operations in the 1990s, said in a phone interview that he knew only about the new titles for Joseph and Clark. It pleased him to hear about the other African Americans who were either hired or promoted.
“They are in positions of authority,” he added. “That means trades and all those things coming in, you have input into them, into building the ball club. You’ve seen the Eagles have made some real significant changes on their ball club this year with the trades, drafting, so forth. They’ve made some very significant moves. No question these guys have been right in the thick of it.”
Wooten hasn’t spent as much time around Kelly as McCoy has, but he’s had more interactions with the Eagles' coach than Stephen A. Smith, who was first in line to use his national media platform to question whether Kelly’s roster decisions harbored racial overtones.
Wooten noted the organizational significance of James Harris, an African-American front-office figure who bears the cryptic title “Chief of Staff.” Kelly doesn’t talk much publicly about Harris, whom the coach brought over from Oregon, and the team’s official website doesn’t have any biographical information about him. But those around the program know Harris is one of the most influential voices around Kelly, someone whom Kelly trusts implicitly.
Wooten also said Kelly has tapped into the Alliance as a resource, first in the handling of Riley Cooper’s 2013 racial slur incident and most recently in Kelly’s search for a personnel executive to lead the scouting department.
Wooten doesn’t buy into the racial rhetoric that’s become as big of a storyline this offseason as any of the team’s comings or goings.
“I would be totally dishonest to you to say I’ve thought Chip Kelly had any kind of racial hang-ups or so forth,” Wooten said, adding that the Alliance had “the utmost confidence” in Kelly’s objective of reshaping the front office and Harris’ role in assisting the head coach.
Kelly has tried to downplay his role in scouting department transactions. He repeatedly has said staff construction falls under the domain of Ed Marynowitz, whom Kelly promoted in February to vice president of player personnel after wresting all power away from Howie Roseman.
But sources close to the situation said Kelly’s influence on the scouting department is undeniable, especially the advancement of Brown, who scouted the west coast for the New England Patriots while Kelly coached at Oregon and was hired by Roseman in 2013.
With Clark and Joseph occupying the two highest-ranking positions under Marynowitz and with Brown overseeing college scouting, Kelly is much further ahead of the front-office diversity curve than his predecessors were.
For most of the 14-year Andy Reid regime, the Eagles didn’t have an African American holding a prominent front-office position except Lou Riddick, who served as director of pro personnel from 2010-2013.
Before Riddick, the last African American to hold a prominent front-office post with the Eagles was Marc Ross, the team’s college scouting director. At 27, Ross was the NFL’s youngest college scouting director, but Reid cleaned house shortly after the 2004 draft and fired Ross as he ushered Heckert up the chain. Ross is now vice president of player evaluation for the rival Giants.
Reid and Heckert, the franchise’s top two decision-makers for several years, kept a relatively vanilla scouting department, but neither had their racial preferences scrutinized the way Kelly’s have been.
Even before Stephen A. Smith jump-started the smear campaign, questions about Kelly’s feelings toward African-American players were raised when he abruptly released three-time Pro Bowl wideout DeSean Jackson just a few weeks after rewarding Cooper with an extension.
Some were already upset Kelly didn’t take draconian measures in 2013, when video of Cooper’s racial slur at a country music concert went viral and brought nationwide shame to the Eagles' wideout. The team fined Cooper and Kelly gave him a four-day break that included some counseling.
Few outside the NovaCare knew then that Kelly had reached out to the Alliance for input and received the committee’s full backing.
“We thought he just made a horrible mistake,” Wooten said. “We felt that he shouldn’t be banned or thrown out or suspended. If he wanted to do what was right, stand [before] the team and acknowledge, apologize and do the things you need to do to show this was horrible mistake you made.”