Tom Heckert: Stand Up Guy

It has taken nearly seven years since Andy Reid has taken over stewardship of the team, but finally someone within the Eagles' organization has said something of consequence. In yesterday's Daily News, all four of the general managers got together to talk a little shop and discuss the challenges they face in today's sports world. The most interesting comments were delivered by Heckert. (Notably, I think Mr. Snider sent Clarkie to the meeting drugged, because very few of his comments were included in the article and those that did make it were either paraphrased or pretty incoherent.)

When asked about the T.O. situation, Heckert said the following:

"We took a gamble. We knew it was a gamble, and we lost. We all knew the situation [going in]. It worked for a while, and then it didn't work. We're ready to move on. . . Obviously, the T.O. thing, if I had it to do all over again, I probably wouldn't do it. Not that it was completely awful from a value standpoint. But just the events that happened afterward, the price wasn't worth it."

Finally! Someone in this organization has let their true feelings be known. It must have been so cathartic for Heckert to say something of substance. Although, considering how secretive the Eagles' organization is, I'm sure when he came into the office the day the article was printed, there was a Post-It on his computer screen from Joe Banner reading "SEE ME, ASAP!" and Heckert spent the next hour getting his ass chewed out.

Hopefully, the days of the bland, uninformative press conferences will be a thing of the past. Reid, D Mac, Dave Spadaro and the rest organization are more politically correct than a politician running for re-election or my corporate human resource rep describing a change to our benefit package.

For once, instead of saying "I think we'll be ok at wide receiver", I wish Reid would let down his guard and say "I absolutely value the wide receiver position and due to some misjudgements on players we drafted, we're not as strong at the position as we'd like to be, especially considering how much we like to throw the ball. Although, if we can spread the ball around to the backs and tight ends, we feel that Reggie Brown, Gaffney and the other guys can develop into serviceable NFL wide receivers." I might fall over in shock if that was actually uttered by Big Red, but it would be a nice start.

Anyhow, for anyone who has felt frustrated by the Birds' close to the vest style, this was a welcome change. Let's hope it starts a trend and the Birds' power trust realizes they aren't the Politburo entrusted with national secrets, but just a bunch of guys lucky enough to run a NFL franchise. In any event, I applaud you, Mr. Heckert. You stay classy!

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Other interesting tidbits from this article:

Gillick said the following about long term contracts:

"Sometimes you think you know somebody but you really don't. And once they get $30 million or $40 million in their pocket, all of a sudden there's not the same commitment there. It doesn't mean they have to be hard-nosed, but they've got to go out and leave it on the field or on the court every night or every day. Sometimes players get a little too comfortable in that situation."

Call me crazy, but wouldn't it make a bit of sense to have these guys do psychological testing to determine if they are the type of person that would get complacement or continue to work to be the best. Christ, a ton of companies do this for employees that they pay $50,000 a year. Is it asking too much for a team to do a battery of tests before throwing $50 million at a guy over 5 years?

Heckert also said the following:

"I talk to [Jeffrey Lurie] a lot, every day, especially during the season. In the offseason, he'll call me at home or in the office... He'll bring up questions, like, 'What about this guy?' on another team, or somebody gets waived... he's never told us we couldn't do anything... He'll bring up what-ifs, like, 'What if this guy gets cut?' Or, 'What if we need to sign this guy to a long-term deal, can we do it now or do we need to wait?' He's very involved, but he lets us do our jobs.''

Is it any wonder that the Eagles have been the most successful team in town? Lurie seems involved just enough to make sure his guys are on top of things, but not so much that he meddles into their work.