The truth behind the blatant tampering between Jonathan Gannon and the Arizona Cardinals may never be fully revealed. The NFL doesn’t want all the messy details to get out. Jeffery Lurie and Howie Roseman don’t want to focus on it. They closed the door on the controversial case by executing a pick swap settlement, one that greatly benefited the Philadelphia Eagles minutes before the first round of the 2023 NFL draft.
Moving on, right? Nothing to see here … sure, but one pot-stirring reporter wanted one last shot at setting the record straight. Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio tackled the subject during a recent sit-down with Eagles general manager Howie Roseman. He kept grilling the savvy front-office executive about what happened despite Howie Roseman’s repeated refusal to deliver any straight answers. The exchange was more comedy than cringe, although there were some tense moments.
Here are a few highlights from the Gannon-specific portion of the nearly 13-minute interview:
Howie Roseman: “I think for me personally, extremely appreciative of JG and his contributions to our football team, you know, helped us win the NFC. That was handled, as we discussed before, at the ownership level, and I think the more we look in the past the less focused we are on the future. For me, that’s over with, wish him well in Arizona and we’re moving on.”
Mike Florio: “Did you guys actually make a complaint or was this the Cardinals raising their hand and saying we realize we screwed up?”
Howie Roseman: “Really appreciative of JG’s contributions helping us win the NFC, and that was handled at the ownership level and I think we need to move on, and the less we focus on the past the better we’ll be in the future.”
Mike Florio: “You’re doing a good job reading …
Howie Roseman: “Did I say that line the same way twice? Because I don’t think I did.”
Mike Florio: “No, you got it right. Your talking points are on point but do you realize that answers like that make people like me think there’s a hell of a lot more to this than anyone is ever going to tell us? And it was a much bigger deal than anyone ever let it on to be.”
Howie Roseman: “Well, if I was making a list of the top-five conspiracy theorists around the National Football League you would be … I don’t know that you would be one … I don’t want to appoint you as one, but you would definitely be top-five.”
Mike Florio: “You’re deflecting, you’re deflecting. Should it not be taken as a surprise that the announcement was made minutes before Round 1 began? Didn’t you even chuckle at that? Like, Good Lord, they’re announcing this to the world literally minutes before the draft started.”
Howie Roseman: “It is possible that’s when the resolution came, right?”
Mike Florio: “Well, I guess that is possible. Is that when it came?”
Howie Roseman: “Again, I don’t want to get into any details but I’m saying there are answers for some of your conspiratorial theories. Is that the word? Conspiratorial theories.”
Mike Florio: “Well, that’s good. It’s good that I got some thing out of you. I thought you were just going to read the talking points again. We have about 30 seconds, do you want to read the talking points one more time?”
Howie Roseman: “I feel like there’s sarcasm involved in that answer.”
Howie Roseman: ‘Mad We’re Talking About the Freakin’ Super Bowl’
Howie Roseman has addressed the Jonathan Gannon situation in previous interviews so the idea that he was going to leak any inside information out was wishful thinking. For starters, the NFL has probably put a gag order on it. And, more importantly, who cares at this point? Gannon is the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals; the Eagles moved up a few spots in the draft.
It was a win-win, especially considering all the drama surrounding their outgoing defensive coordinator. Meanwhile, Roseman expressed no lingering animosity toward Gannon when asked if he was mad.
“I’m mad that we’re talking about the freakin’ Super Bowl,” Roseman told SportsRadio 94WIP’s Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie, via Audacy. “I’m mad that I got to freakin’ go back to that moment, that we had a chance to win our second world championship and it drives me. All this other stuff, it doesn’t help us win games so we’ve got to move on from it and figure out the best way to win games. That was handled at the ownership level and at the league level and for me I can only control what we can, which is adding as many good players and as many good people as we can on this team.”
Photo by John Jones/Icon Sportswire
