Recently, the Eagles named Howie Roseman the team’s V.P. of player personnel.  In so doing, the team explained that he has been involved, and will be heavily involved moving forward, in the evaluation of players.

It was a significant moment in the ongoing tension between “football guys” (i.e., those who have either played in the NFL or who have cut their teeth in a scouting department) and “non-football guys” (i.e., lawyers or accountants who have used the complexities of the salary cap as a way to infiltrate the business).

But Eagles coach Andy Reid acts like it’s no big deal.  “I think you’re seeing it with a few teams, when you look around,” Reid said Thursday.  “I don’t really care, as long as the guy can evaluate.  Whether he played or not, that doesn’t matter to me.  If he’s got a knack for it and an eye for it, that’s really all I care about.”

While some non-football guys are involved in football matters with some other teams (e.g., the Jets and G.M. Mike Tannenbaum and the Saints and G.M. Mickey Loomis), no one has expressly given as much authority regarding personnel to a person who has crossed over from other areas of the enterprise as the Eagles have given to Roseman.

That said, Reid is right.  If Roseman can evaluate, so be it.  But there’s no Wonderlic test that can be taken in this regard, and “smart guys” who have obtained multiple degrees tend to think they’re automatically able to figure out who the best football players are by watching film and studying stats.

The problem is that, for every Howie Roseman who might have a natural knack for evaluating players, there are five other guys who think that their M.B.A. or their J.D. means that they can figure it all out, too.

As one league source recently explained, the ultimate danger is that the NFL will become fantasy football.

The source also pointed out that the gradual rise of the non-football guys might be contributing, directly or indirectly, to the fact that more than a few highly qualified football guys don’t currently have football jobs.  Charley Casserly, Tom Donahoe, Rick Mueller, and Mike Lombardi, to name a few, aren’t currently working in the NFL even though they’ve got the chops to do it.

If other teams regard the Roseman phenomenon as a license to elevate in-house lawyers and bean counters into positions of football authority, there could be more non-football guys getting football jobs with big titles — and more football guys on the outside looking in.