PHILADELPHIA — Howie Roseman was on a podcast last month, talking about the lessons he has learned over his years as the Eagles’ player-personnel chief, from his two Super Bowl victories to his 2015 exile under Chip Kelly and everything in between. Asked about his evaluations of players and the role that character plays in those evaluations, he said this:

“It’s easy to make excuses for guys. It’s easy, on a case-by-case basis, to go, ‘Oh, if we can get this guy …’ For us, we have some objective things that I can’t even overrule, and they’re ours. For one, violence against women. It’s just not for us. I won’t even watch them. I don’t even want to talk about it. It just is a deal-breaker for us. You can’t go, ‘But he’s really good, and he did it 10 years ago, and he learned from it.’ It just doesn’t work for us.”

It was the kind of line that sets up the person who uttered it for either shallow praise or accusations of hypocrisy. You listen to Roseman there, and depending on your levels of cynicism and/or Eagles fandom, you likely go one of two ways. Either you think, Yeah, Howie! Or you think, Yeah, right, Howie.

The latter reaction is more grounded in reality. After all, Roseman’s assertion that violence against women was a nonstarter for him and the Eagles was quite the thing for him to say two years after trading up in the 2023 draft to select Jalen Carter with the ninth overall pick. In January of that year, Carter was involved in a drag racing incident that led to the death of two people — one of whom, Chandler LeCroy, was 24 years old. And a woman.

But Carter is an incredible player, on his way to becoming the best defensive tackle in the NFL if he isn’t already, and hasn’t caused the Eagles any major trouble since his arrival. They took a risk with him — a risk eight other franchises weren’t ready to take — and so far it has paid off, and it’s an instructive example to consider ahead of this year’s draft.

Two prospects who, for their talent and the positions they play, would seem to be perfect fits with the Eagles are Marshall edge rusher Mike Green and Ole Miss defensive tackle Walter Nolen. But both seem to have the sort of character concerns that would give any general manager, Roseman included, at least some pause. Nolen, according to an ESPN report, caused scouts in the league worry with “maturity concerns,” including an apparent tendency to walk off the field during practices out of frustration. Football issues, in other words.

The questions around Green are far more serious. He was twice accused of sexual assault, once in high school and once while at the University of Virginia in August 2022. Charlottesville police suspended their investigation of the second accusation and never charged Green.

“We live in a country where you’re innocent until proven guilty, and so we try to abide by the judicial process,” Roseman said Tuesday at the NovaCare Complex, nine days before the draft’s first round. “But I think to get into the details of what we do, that’s part of our internal dynamics that I probably wouldn’t want to get into. But certainly we try not to make it subjective, is basically what I would say — [don’t] get in a situation where we really like a player [and] make excuses for that player. So, we try to have objective criteria when it comes to the issues that you’re asking me about.

“But it is important to us, the people that we bring in this building — and that we know we can win with really good people. We also know that young people make mistakes in other areas, but that [issue] was one that was on my heart when I was talking about it and something that we believe in as an organization.”

Roseman didn’t offer any indication whether Green — or any other player with similar uncertainties surrounding him — was off the Eagles’ draft board. And in fairness to them, there is reason to believe that such a player shouldn’t be. Roseman hasn’t shown the same propensity to take chances on players with suspect backgrounds that his predecessor and mentor Andy Reid has. And the presence and particular skills of Dom DiSandro, the team’s chief security officer, allow the Eagles a firm buffer of knowledge, gut instinct and background checks when it comes to determining whether a player will turn out to be a problem.

“We start with these basic principles of, ‘We will not draft because of this,’ and when we get past those guys, then we obviously have a process that we go through,” Roseman said. “That starts with Dom. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he’s the best in the National Football League and, in my opinion, really all of sports in what he does — his ability to not only gather information, but to have a feel for people.

“Then we just have to make judgments, and in those situations, those are a little bit more subjective, and that’s based on all the information that we get. We’ll have a bunch of those in this draft, just like there are in every draft, and we’re just trying to do whatever we can to increase the odds that we hit on a player. Talent’s a big part of this. The person’s a big part of this.”

There’s one more big part of this: value. Roseman and the Eagles are willing to go after a gifted and promising player who, for whatever reason, is available for less than what they perceive his market value is. More than willing, actually. They’re obsessive about it. They consider it a core precept of their team-building philosophy. It was why they jumped at the opportunity to move up in ’23 and draft Carter — to break from the principles that Roseman mentioned in that podcast and referenced again Tuesday. Don’t be surprised if, come that first round next Thursday, they do it again.

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