NEW ORLEANS — In trying to sustain the Eagles‘ recent success — seven playoff appearances and three Super Bowls in the past eight years — and in working to stop the Chiefs from pulling off the NFL’s first three-peat, general manager Howie Roseman has sought wisdom from his counterparts in other sports leagues.
“You just try to talk to similarly situated people,” said Roseman on Monday at the Superdome, where the Eagles and Chiefs will meet on Sunday night in Super Bowl LIX. “You try to talk to people who understand. Maybe you’re not asking, ‘Hey, do you think I should sign this player?’ but more just, ‘Hey, this is what I’m thinking from a big-picture perspective,’ and they get that.”
The San Antonio Spurs won five NBA championships in a span of 15 years under RC Buford, including three in five seasons from 2003-07, and Roseman has found that leadership strategies can translate well from sport to sport.
“The godfather of all GMs in my mind is RC Buford,” Roseman said. “I speak to him regularly. I spoke to him last week. He’s just an unbelievable guy.”
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Roseman has also been longtime friends with New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman. Considering that the Eagles are the only thing stopping Kansas City from becoming the first team to win three straight Super Bowls, it makes sense that Roseman talks with Cashman, whose Yankees had MLB’s last three-peat from 1998-2000.
“I think Brian Cashman does a tremendous job,” Rosman said. “He’s a guy in a big city, that New York passion for baseball is like our passion.”
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Cashman, reached by phone Tuesday, said there’s a mutual respect with Roseman, and while his NFL loyalties are with the hometown Giants, he said they share an appreciation for learning from the other’s successes and failures.
“I think it’s extremely important to be humble and recognize that you don’t have all the answers to anything,” Cashman said. “You’re always seeking higher ground, and assessing if somebody’s doing something better than you in some capacity, for you to drill down and find out about it. Whether it’s the athletic training side, analytics, how to communicate with your coaching staff or your scouts, how you deal with challenges.
“The Northeast is a pretty tough market. Howie in Philly and me in New York, we talk about when things go off the rails, how you manage through that, how you manage up, how you manage down. It’s really a benefit to either provide information or gather information from somebody else in a similar chair.”
The two met more than a decade ago through a leadership group, and they talk often by phone, but Roseman and Cashman have spent time together as well. Cashman has observed the Eagles’ operation in Philadelphia, and when the team went to Tampa for the wild-card round last season, Roseman had lunch with Cashman before the game.
Cashman has similar friendships in other sports, including with Buford, Brooklyn Nets GM Sean Marks, New York Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello, Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari, even coaches in Premier League soccer and Australian Rules football. The Yankees GM is happy to see the Eagles’ success, knowing it could unlock a path to his own team finding the same.
“You cast a wide net to try to share information and experiences,” he said. “You go to the no-page-left-unturned to uncover every rock. My attitude is somebody is always doing something better than you, and you’d better find out who. So the Yankees should be using every tool in the toolbox, and one way to know if you are is to make sure you’re looking into all athletic fields.”
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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