Thoughts On Nick Foles/Sam Bradford Trade

Chip Kelly The GM Is Clueless

Do you hear that?

Somewhere on the “business side” of the Novacare Complex, Howie Roseman must be laughing himself to sleep.

And why is Howie laughing? Because the moves that Chip Kelly has made so far have been absolute jokes. And none have been worse than the one that occurred on Tuesday afternoon.

Everyone that follows the team got the sense that Kelly wasn’t a fan of Nick Foles, and that it seemed very likely that he would be moved at some point this off-season even though the former third-round pick had shown some promise in his young career.

Kelly showed with this deal that he has no idea how to properly assess a player’s value in this league. For a young quarterback that accomplished what Foles had done, the Eagles could have gotten a much larger return. Chip doesn’t seem to understand that just because he didn’t put a high value on Foles doesn’t mean that other teams wouldn’t.

This is a league where everybody is desperate for quarterback help. Teams will reach on prospects from Tim Tebow to Johnny Manziel in the first round, and clubs will pay second-round picks for the likes of A.J. Feeley and Kevin Kolb if they flash even a little potential.

And here we have Foles, who may not have been a “fit” for his majesty’s offensive system, but still had compiled some very impressive statistics and results during his three-year career. At the minimum, he could have fetched the same return that Feeley and Kolb brought in years past. Ideally, he should have been used to help strengthen the team’s assets in the draft.

However, I’m afraid that our dear, all-powerful leader not only failed to acquire any significant draft assets for Foles, but instead managed to GIVE AWAY a second-rounder in the process.

And all of this so the Eagles could pick up Sam Bradford? The same Sam Bradford that Rams may have been on the verge of releasing? No team in this league would have given a second-rounder for Bradford.

That’s a complete and utter failure on the part of Chip Kelly. His lack of experience is running this team into the ground.

The St. Louis Rams straight up fleeced Kelly and the Eagles in this deal, hands down. They virtually picked up Foles, a second-rounder, and a fourth-rounder for nothing.

And you can bet the Rams’ front office is laughing just as hard as Howie.

Chip Kelly The Coach Is Clueless

And so what did Chip Kelly throw away a promising young quarterback, a future second-round pick, and a fourth-round pick to acquire?

Sam Bradford has shown some significant promise at times, but he’s been killing the Rams for years because of his inability to stay healthy.

If you thought Michael Vick and Nick Foles had trouble staying healthy over the last few years, they look like iron men compared to Bradford.

Bradford has made it through 16 games only twice in his career. He hasn’t played a down in almost two years after suffering back-to-back ACL tears. He also had significant questions about his shoulder coming out of college.

And now the plan is to put him front and center in an offense that relies on the read-option, constantly putting the quarterback in harm’s way? Yeah, sounds like a fool-proof plan to me.

Good lord, we may as well brace ourselves for Mark Sanchez being the quarterback for the majority of this year again. There’s absolutely no way that a guy like Bradford stays healthy in this offense.

Is There A Larger Move Coming?

Listening to everyone and their brother try to make sense of this garbage, one of the most popular theories is that the Eagles acquired Bradford so that they could flip him as part of a larger trade to another team to help the Eagles pick up Marcus Mariota.

I don’t see it.

I look at Sam Bradford, and I don’t see how he could be that appealing to the other quarterback-needy franchises. And if he were that appealing, why wouldn’t any of those other teams have just gone out and made a deal with the Rams themselves?

I think the Eagles actually plan on building around Bradford, as insane as that sounds. They parted with a good young quarterback and a second round pick, and a fourth rounder to bring this guy to Philadelphia. That’s a very high price to pay for a guy who would supposedly never see the field for this franchise.

We also need to consider that the Eagles have too many holes to fill, and an “all-in” deal for Mariota may no longer be feasible at this point. With the Birds unexpectedly losing Jeremy Maclin, and also missing out on Frank Gore, and failing to lure in Devin McCourtey, this team still has a ton of holes to fill.

The self-inflicted wounds the team has had to endure to satisfy Kelly’s brilliant vision have created dire needs for help at the wide receiver and running back positions. The talent on the offensive line needs to be replenished. They still need another cornerback. And the eternal quest to upgrade Nate Allen at the safety position opposite Malcolm Jenkins continues as well.

That’s a lot of holes to fill, and free agency can’t take care of all of them. They need their draft picks to properly address their needs. Sending away high picks from this year, 2016 (which is already down a second-rounder, thanks Chip), and 2017 is only a recipe to put this team in an even larger hole.

Reports indicate that Kelly wanted Bradford, and he went after him pretty hard.

Like it or not, it looks like Sam is here to stay.

Final Thoughts

This off-season has been such a mess, and I really fear for the future of this organization.

When you look at the body of work, the Eagles seem to have taken one step forward through the addition of Byron Maxwell and about three steps back through the losses of LeSean McCoy, Jeremy Maclin, and now Foles.

Day to day, this team seems to be getting worse, not better. We’ve quickly gone from having great promise for 2015 to dreading the worst.

The more I think about it, I really can’t blame Jeremy Maclin for going to Kansas City and getting out of this situation. And it’s no wonder to me that Frank Gore had second thoughts about coming here.

I’ve seen this franchise make all kinds of questionable signings, decisions, and trades over the years. And there have been some pretty low moments for this franchise in just the last five years alone.

I think about all of those terrible moves, everything from taking Brandon Graham over Earl Thomas to selecting Danny Watkins in the first round, to starting Casey Matthews at middle linebacker in his rookie year, to the release of DeSean Jackson last year, and none of those moves have been more baffling than what’s been going on over the last two weeks.

If there’s a silver lining to all of this nonsense, if Kelly really plans to try to build around Bradford, at the very least maybe the Eagles can escape the genius mortgaging everything to go up and get his system quarterback and if things really do go south than the franchise at least won’t be in a hole for years with a lack of top picks.