The Eagles named Ed Marynowitz – (pronounced MAN-o-witz) – as the team’s vice president of player personnel. The announcement came yesterday – and it came as no surprise to me. In fact, I predicted it back on New Year’s Day.

Let’s go back over the chronology –

Tuesday, December 30 – Howie Roseman fired Tom Gamble, but the Eagles didn’t announce the move until New Year’s Eve. The move caused a rift in the front office between Roseman and head coach Chip Kelly.

The next day – New Year’s Day – Chip Kelly instigated a counter-move. Kelly sought an audience with Jeffrey Lurie and Kelly convinced the Eagles owner to demote Howie Roseman and put himself – Chip Kelly – in charge of both coaching the players and picking the players. For some strange reason, Lurie acquiesced to Chip’s demands and Kelly gained absolute control of the Eagles.

The next day, I predicted that Ed Marynowitz would be named as Howie Roseman’s replacement – but that move was almost a month in coming.

That’s because the Eagles went through the motions.

January 5 – I wrote about Sheldon White being interviewed for the vacant position. White is the Detroit Lions VP of player personnel. Sheldon White is also a black man. At that time, I suggested that Sheldon White was a sacrificial lamb who was interviewed so that the Eagles would be in compliance with the Rooney Rule – the NFL mandate that requires teams to interview a minority candidate to fill its vacant positions – and it appears that I was right.

At that point, I became convinced that Ed Marynowitz was the man.

Nevertheless, after Sheldon White, there came a list of candidates who interviewed with the Eagles or who were contacted by the Eagles to schedule an interview. There were Chris Ballard, Chris Grier, Chris Polian, Brian Gaine, Scott Fitterer, and John Schneider. Brian Gutenkunst and Joe Hortiz declined to be interviewed – and I may have omitted a candidate or two.

Why was I convinced that Ed Marynowitz was going to get the promotion?

For two reasons.

One – As soon as Tom Gamble was fired, I started to research possible replacements. Ed Marynowitz was easy to find – he already worked for the Eagles in the player personnel department. He was already the assistant director of player personnel.

Everything I found, saw, read, and heard about Marynowitz was positive. He was called a budding super-star in the area of personnel, and his name was put in the same sentence with the Ravens brilliant GM Ozzie Newsome. It was believed that Marynowitz was going to soon become a GM in the NFL – and the timetable was short.

If the Eagles passed over Marynowitz, another team was sure to grab him – if not this year, then next year – and he would be lost to the Eagles. The way I heard it, the Eagles would be crazy to let him slip through their fingers.

Two – As the hiring process proceeded, the media kept talking about the aforementioned candidates and kept tracking the progress in the hiring process. But there was little mention of Ed Marynowitz. His name that seemed to slip through the cracks – and that rang a bell in my mind.

To me, that meant it was already a done deal. Sheldon White was the Rooney Rule interview, and the others were red herrings to make it appear that the Eagles were doing their due-diligence. But I kept my eye on the ball. As far as I was concerned, Ed Marynowitz was the only candidate from Jump Street.

In case you’re unfamiliar with his background, let’s go back to his roots. He’s from Media, PA, but moved to Florida, where he was a star quarterback at Pope John Paul II high school in Boca Raton. From there, he returned to Philly to attend LaSalle University and he played quarterback for two years. When LaSalle terminated its football program, Marynowitz transferred to Central Florida. But he didn’t play. Instead, he worked in football operations at UCF in 2005 and 2006.

In 2007, he caught on with the Miami Dolphins as a scouting assistant – where he worked under Bill Parcells. Then came a major breakthrough in Marynowitz’ career.

From 2008 through 2011, he was the director of recruiting for Lou Saban at Alabama. While in that capacity, he recruited the Bama players who led the Crimson Tide to National Championships in 2009, 2011, and 2012,

The Eagles hired Marynowitz in 2012 as Howie Roseman’s assistant.

The only knock on him was about his age – he’s 30.

I believe he’s the right man.

Barry Bowe is the author of 12 Best Eagles QBs.