Lurie: Kelly, Roseman Have a Plan

ORLANDO, Fla. – Like Howie Roseman, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie did not want to talk about DeSean Jackson during a brief session with reporters Tuesday afternoon at the Ritz-Carlton.

Asked about the status of the wide receiver, Lurie responded: “Nothing to say.”

And that was that.

But the Eagles’ owner did emphasize that he has faith in what Chip Kelly and Roseman are trying to accomplish this offseason.

“Very confident, because it’s a very focused plan,” Lurie said. “It’s a very focused plan based on what the character needs to be, what the performance level needs to be, what the preparation to perform at your maximum level needs to be. It’s a very focused target system where you know the kinds of people you want to surround our current players with and who to go after and what the function in this offense is. Because it’s different than it was with Andy [Reid]. The defense is completely different.

“So I think they’re very, very focused, and it worked out really well the first year with Chip and the personnel department, Howie, figuring out what would be best. But now it’s really obvious. Because at first you’re just checking to see whether you can understand each other and communicate and maximize what you’re doing. Now we’ve had a whole year to figure out exactly the kinds of players in the draft and what their performance level needs to be, what their strengths and weaknesses can be and their character.”

The Eagles added a starting safety in Malcolm Jenkins in free agency. They also added Nolan Carroll for cornerback depth and a couple special teams pieces.

Lurie shed some light on why the Eagles did not go after Jairus Byrd, making it clear that if Kelly wanted the former Oregon safety, the team would have been aggressive in signing him.

“You’ve gotta allocate your resources what you think is best to win big,” Lurie said. “Nobody knows the safety who the Saints signed better than our coach. I have very big confidence in that. And if he thought that we should allocate our resources to have that player be our safety for the next several years at that level, then that’s what we would have done.

“I think you have to be very astute in how you want to allocate your resources to win big. We learned a lesson in terms of a few years ago in the offseason. Sure, we were the team that signed Nnamdi [Asomugha] and some other guys. It just doesn’t work that way. You’ve gotta be disciplined. And in this case it was great because our coach knew some of the top free-agent safeties, and they played for him and we could operate at a level that was based on his projection of reality.”

We’ve now heard from Roseman and Lurie. Next up is Kelly. He’ll be available Wednesday morning at 7:15. Birds 24/7 will have full coverage.