Bold truth: Howie Roseman believes listening is the engine that powers an NFL team's growth, and he’ll always take a call. If another franchise wants to discuss a trade for a player on the Eagles, Roseman says he will always listen.
During an interview on PFT Live, Roseman explained his guiding principle: it’s worth hearing what any other team is willing to offer. When asked if he would hang up if a GM called about A.J. Brown, he responded firmly, “I would never do that about anything.”
“Part of our job as a general manager in the National Football League is to listen,” Roseman elaborated. “To listen to what people are willing to do. If you don’t listen you may lose an opportunity to do something. So I don’t want to not listen to anyone calling me on anything because there may be something I say yes to that I wasn’t prepared to say yes to. And if I sit there and someone calls me on anyone and I say I’m not even going to listen, I don’t know what they’re going to offer. And my job is to make the team better. My job is to take 53 guys, build and develop a team that can compete and eventually win a championship. How do you do that? You have to make a lot of decisions to do that. So in the course of that, if there are opportunities that come up that you weren’t prepared for, and you just say, I had this plan and I’m stuck on this plan, I can’t deviate from that plan, I don’t know in my opinion if that’s the best way to run the Philadelphia Eagles.”
For Roseman, there’s no downside to answering the phone. Listening can shape future strategies by showing how other teams value his players and what those players might fetch in a trade. Even if a GM has no intention of trading a player, hearing offers helps gauge market value and informs the Eagles how much it would take to retain a star as free agency approaches.
So Roseman will continue to take every call. Whether it’s A.J. Brown or any other Eagles roster member, the principle remains: keep the lines open, weigh every possibility, and let the numbers and opportunities guide the plan to build a champion.
But here’s where it gets controversial: is there a line where listening becomes indecision or destabilization of long-term goals? And this is the part most people miss—how do teams balance keeping core players with remaining open to transformative deals that could alter the franchise’s trajectory? What’s your take: should a GM ever decline a conversation to protect a core plan, or should they always keep the door ajar for potential greatness?
