Lurie Addresses ‘Bold’ Decisions

PHILADELPHIA (973espn.com) - Eagles chairman Jeffrey Lurie officially hit the rewind button on Wednesday, saying former general manager Howie Roseman will once again lead the team's football operations.

So, in the end Chip Kelly's power-play win over Roseman back in January resulted in a promotion to vice president of football operations and a pay raise for Roseman, although the actual power that comes with the shiny title was deferred by just under a calendar year.

Roseman will oversee a personnel department run day-to-day by former senior adviser Tom Donahoe. Those two men, along with the new coach eventually hired to replace the deposed Chip Kelly, will collaborate on all player-related decisions.

Lurie gave few hints on who the next coach will be other than to say he isn't tied to a type and will consider college candidates despite Kelly's ineffectiveness.

As far as the ex-coach Lurie claimed he did not offer Kelly the option of giving up personnel control to stay as the head coach and claimed Kelly did not fight the decision.

Lurie said hiring Kelly was a bold decision and he understood the pitfalls of giving the coach so much control but didn't want to be risk adverse. The owner believed it was important to give Kelly every tool he wanted but needed to hold him accountable in his effort to go from  “good to great.”

“You were either all-in or you should find a new coach in terms of the trust. So the choice was, let’s see if that’s going to work,” Lurie said. “In terms of the results? That’s why we’re here today.”

“The end result was mediocrity,” Lurie continued. “As the owner of the team I’ve got to look at the progress and the trajectory of where it’s headed.”

Lurie intimated his biggest issue with Kelly was the coach's leadership skills or lack thereof and claimed his next coach needed "emotional intelligence."

"We need a coach that can relate to today's athlete in today's world," Lurie said, a clear indication some of the high-profile, disgruntled-player criticism hit home.

-John McMullen covers the Eagles and the NFL for 973ESPN.com. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen