After a week of rumors and speculation, it appears as though the inevitable is upon us According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Eagles VP of player personnel, Joe Douglas, will become the next New York Jets general manager.
Douglas spent fifteen years with the Baltimore Ravens, first as an area scout where his work influenced the decision to draft Joe Flacco and then as a National Scout in 2012. He held this position for three years before moving to Chicago to become the Bears’ head of College Scouting in 2015. It was here where Douglas learned under Bears G.M Ryan Pace.
As we all know, Douglas has played a pivotal role with the Eagles. He’s help Howie Roseman set the draft board and along with Andy Weidl (another name to watch who could follow his long-term colleague to New York), has instilled a new way of evaluating talent and acquiring it. A flurry of ‘prove-it contracts’ every offseason surround a core thats been built from the trenches outward. A former pupil of the Ozzie Newsome school of scouting, this should come as no surprise.
The former Eagles’ vice president of player personnel has a strong relationship with Jets Head Coach Gase after working together in Chicago.
As for a replacement, the Eagles have been preparing for this for quite some time it seems. They hired Andrew Berry to work under Douglas this offseason and it’s likely he will receive a promotion.
Most recently, Berry spent three seasons working with the Cleveland Browns and was hired by the team in 2016 at Age-29, which is very young for a ‘Vice President of Player Personnel’ role. During that time, the Browns obviously experienced the lowest of lows amidst some recently exceptional highs and much of that is to do with the dramatic roster turnaround that the former Harvard cornerback oversaw.
Prior to his role in Cleveland, he was a Pro Scouting Director in Indianapolis after working his way up from a scouting assistant, which he earned in 2009. Spending six years with the Colts, Berry rapidly rose up the ladder.
This is a developing story, so there may be another announcement coming, but it seems as if the Birds had been prepared to lose Douglas, a man who had ‘future GM’ written all over him, since he first signed with the team.
Mandatory Photo credit: JESSICA GRIFFIN
