NFL teams tend to be extremely secretive, and the Chip Kelly-led Philadelphia Eagles are no exception.
But the Philly faithful were afforded a peak behind the scenes of sorts when the organization pulled back the curtain long enough to shoo former Vice President of Player Personnel Tom Gamble out the door on Wednesday -- a move that made season-ending comments from Kelly and team-owner Jeffrey Lurie seem a bit more meaningful, a bit weightier.
With Gamble's ousting ostensibly indicating that Roseman has upped his level of organization influence, it's fair to wonder if the opposite is true for Kelly.
Does the dismissal of his handpicked personnel executive mean not only that Roseman is stronger, but also that Kelly, the team's coach and culture architect, is now, in fact, weaker?
"The important thing about a general manager is obviously picking the players," said former agent and NFL executive Andrew Brandt, who analyzes the league for ESPN, according to Mike Sielski of The Philadelphia Inquirer, "but more so building consensus between the three parts of the football operation, which are player evaluation, coaching and financial management.
"The lens I look at everything is through negotiations and leverage," Brandt said. "A young rising candidate who's never been a GM is not going to be in position to say, 'I want my own guy.' Someone who's got a lot of skins on the wall, they've got a different opinion that could be taken into consideration."
With Roseman - who directed the 2012 Eagles draft that landed the team defensive stars in Fletcher Cox and Mychal Kendricks, high-quality reserves and potential starters in Brandon Boykin and Vinny Curry and diamond in the rough and possible franchise quarterback Nick Foles - having now been with the team as GM for six seasons and most likely viewing himself as very much possessing those skins, it's hard not to see the dynamic in Philadelphia's front office as shifting.
For Kelly, that shift may mean less of a voice when it comes to enacting his full football vision.
