BOCA RATON, Fla. — The reported deal was massive.
According to FoxSports’ Peter Schrager, the Eagles offered the Titans the following to move up to the second spot in last year’s draft in order to get Marcus Mariota: their 2015 first- and second-round picks, their 2016 first-rounder, any quarterback on their roster and any defensive player on their roster.
That would have been quite a trade.
Only former Eagles coach and de facto general manager Chip Kelly says the offer never happened.
“No,” Kelly said, denying the report, at the NFC coaches breakfast on Wednesday. “Tennessee was never trading, Tampa Bay was never trading. So I know Ed (Marynowitz) talked to both [Titans former GM Ruston Webster] and then [Buccaneers GM Jason Licht] and they weren’t moving off their picks, so there was no offer made.”
The Eagles ended up staying at pick No. 20 and selected wide receiver Nelson Agholor. Meanwhile, Mariota landed in Tennessee with the second pick.
While Kelly claimed there was never an offer made to the Titans, he would have clearly loved if the Eagles found a way to get Mariota, who played for Kelly at Oregon. Kelly, again on Wednesday, said he thinks Mariota is “outstanding” and expects him to do an “unbelievable job” with the Titans.
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Looking back, if the Eagles did make a move to trade up and select Mariota, it would have altered the course of the franchise greatly. If that happened, Kelly, who was fired on Dec. 29, would likely still be coaching in Philadelphia.
Instead, he did his talking on Wednesday morning from a table with a 49ers logo on it.
Still, Kelly continued to claim the Eagles didn’t make an offer to move up last year.
“It was never my plan to ransom everything for one player,” Kelly said. “And to make that jump ... I think the one metric you always had was what did St. Louis give up to go from 6 to 2? And now you’re talking about us going from 20 to 2, that was ... if you’re on the other side, you say ‘Hey, this is what St. Louis gave up a couple years ago, for you to make that jump, it’s going to take this.’”