Dallas Cowboys fans know all too tell that the Philadelphia Eagles are the gold standard. General manager Howie Roseman is the best in the business when it comes to evaluating talent, roster construction and navigating the salary cap.
As painful as it is to admit, the Eagles are not going anywhere as long as Roseman is pulling the strings in the front office. They might be in for a rude awakening on the cap side of things in a few years, but if any GM can survive having to pinch pennies, it's Roseman.
Having said that, Philadelphia's front office suffered a huge loss this week after the Las Vegas Raiders hired Anthony Patch as a senior personnel executive. Patch most recently served as the Eagles' senior director of college scouting and was considered Roseman's premier sidekick.
Eagles losing touted scout Anthony Patch is a win for the Cowboys
Patch had been with Philly for 23 years, originally joining the team in a college scouting coordinator capacity in 2022. He served as a director of college scouting, assistant director of college scouting and an area scout before being promoted to director of college scouting in 2012.
Much to Eagles fans' chagrin, Patch was let go in 2015 during the short-lived Chip Kelly-Ed Marynowitz era, but he was swiftly reinstated as senior director of college scouting after Roseman assumed his role at the head of the personnel snake.
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Roseman gets the bulk of the credit for the Eagles' success, and rightfully so. They are one of the most well-run organizations in professional sports, let alone football. They rebounded from the Carson Wentz debacle and morphed into a juggernaut almost instantly. Nobody does it better and more efficiently than Roseman.
As someone who has been with the franchise for over two decades, though, Patch deserves his flowers. It was only a matter of time until another team gave Patch a more prominent organizational role. The Raiders deserve credit for beating everyone else to the punch.
The Eagles obviously won't crash and burn without Patch, but there is a reason fans are distraught over his move to Las Vegas.
Patch's path is eerily similar to that of Cowboys' personnel whiz Will McClay. Now the vice president of player personnel, McClay served as a pro scout from 2002-08 and then as pro scouting coordinator in 2009-10 before getting promoted to director of football research in 2011.
Losing Patch is equivalent to Will McClay leaving Dallas. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison being the Eagles still have Roseman running point, but Patch and McClay carry similar value.
Any Eagles loss is a win for the Cowboys, and this is a big L.