On Monday, March 25, Pizza with the Pros welcomed the Philadelphia Eagles’ VP of Football Administration, Jake Rosenberg.
Rosenberg is entering his 12th season with the Eagles. He works directly with Executive VP/GM Howie Roseman on player development and signings, managing the salary cap, and negotiating contracts. Rosenberg graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and international relations.
Going into college, Rosenberg didn’t know what he wanted to do for a career. He applied early and chose to attend Penn State because he had a couple of cousins who went there. Towards the end of college, Rosenberg was still clueless about what career he wanted to pursue.
Rosenberg’s path to get to where he is today was unusual, to say the least. After graduating college, he took a job at a consulting firm for two years. When working on a long-term project in Chicago, he had a co-worker who worked on a trading floor. Out of curiosity, Rosenberg went down to the trading floor on one of his lunch breaks and was astonished by what he saw.
“I had no idea that people did something like that for a living. It was literally like playing a sport for a job,” Rosenberg stated.
After seeing this, Rosenberg quit his consulting job within days, instantly falling in love with trading. He took a job at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. Six months later, he took a bunch of money out of his account and started trading. Rosenberg traded anything from products to situations electronically for the next thirteen years of his life.
Rosenberg moved back east, still electronically trading. However, trading wasn’t his passion in life, it was sports. Back when he was a little kid, he would always read the newspapers to check what was going on in sports.
“I had no idea how to work in sports or that it was even a real thing. I never really took the time, never had anyone sit and explain to me that you can sort of marry your passion and your profession,” Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg’s father worked at an insurance company. He commuted to New York, taking the bus there and back. He saw it as a regular job that a lot of people had and his dad didn’t have much for it. This inspired Rosenberg to find a career that he would love to do.
Just like his dad, Rosenberg commuted to New York from North Jersey. When working in New York, he got the opportunity to work an internship in sports for the Philadelphia Eagles, pivoting his career yet again.
For the next eleven months, Rosenberg drove to Philadelphia and back, an 83-mile commute, leaving early in the morning and getting home late at night. He managed to do this while also taking care of his daughter, who at the time was a baby.
Throughout this process, Rosenberg was able to work himself up to where he is today, becoming one of the most important people who currently work for the franchise.
Pizza with the Pros will continue next Monday, April 1, with a new guest speaker.
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