I kept thinking … maybe the reports are wrong. Maybe the details of the trade are wrong. Maybe it’s a fake Twitter account. Maybe I misread it. Maybe the Eagles actually received a second-round pick instead of giving one up.
And I kept reading the tweet from the Eagles over and over and over and it didn’t change.
Because this happened, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how the Eagles are a better football team now than they were yesterday.
Nick Foles, a second-round pick in 2016 and a fourth-round pick in 2015 for Sam Bradford and the Rams’ fifth-round pick in 2015 (see story).
It just can’t be.
But there it is.
Sam Bradford is the Eagles’ quarterback.
Sam Bradford.
It just does not add up.
There has to be more. There has to be something else. There has to be a deeper plan.
Because you simply don’t make Sam Bradford — 18 career wins, two career ACLs, 59 touchdown passes in 49 games — the centerpiece of your football team.
So maybe there’s still a chance Chip Kelly has something up his sleeve. Maybe there’s more to come. Maybe there’s a team out there at the top of the draft that wants Bradford and is just sitting there waiting to trade a top-five pick to the Eagles for Bradford, freeing up the Eagles to draft Kelly’s beloved Marcus Mariotta.
But that really seems like a longshot. Because when they look at Bradford, they’ll see what we see:
Turns 28 this fall, has played just seven games the last two years because of consecutive torn ACLs in the same knee, won 18 of 49 starts with the Rams, limited to an average of 9.8 starts per season because of injuries, has never had a winning record in any NFL season and even has a lower rushing average than Foles (3.9 to 2.5). Oh, and has a $12.985 million cap figure this year.
Here’s the legacy Nick Foles leaves: 14-4 record under Kelly with 40 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions. The third-best interception ratio in NFL history and the ninth-highest passer rating. Walked off the field against the Saints in 2013 with the lead in a playoff game, only to watch special teams and the defense give the game away.
Why Kelly gave up on Foles so quickly is a big enough mystery. You just don’t give up on big, tough, smart, young quarterbacks with a history of winning football games. They’re hard to find. Foles has his faults, but he’s shown enough in his first 24 career starts that it’s clear he can play the game at a high level and with his work ethic it’s clear he’s going to get even better.
Why Kelly believes he can win a Super Bowl with Bradford is an even bigger mystery. Bradford is a talented guy and has been buried on bad teams, but the bottom line is he’s been in the NFL five years and won 18 games and blown out his knee two years in a row.
The Eagles keep asking us to trust Kelly, but it’s getting harder and harder to do it.
It’s only March 10, and there are more moves to come, and there’s the rest of free agency and the draft and trades, and I’m always the one preaching patience half a year before opening day.
But I can’t comprehend how a team without DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, LeSean McCoy and Nick Foles is better than one with them.
Taken individually, some of the moves make sense. I was OK with the releasing of Jackson because of his size and annual drop in production late in the season. I was OK with the Shady trade because of his cap figure and because the Eagles got Kiko Alonso back and because running backs really do seem pretty much interchangeable.
But the Eagles lost me when they let Maclin go to the Chiefs, and giving up Foles and a second-round pick for a perennially injured quarterback with a lesser resume is baffling.
It doesn’t help that Kelly and Jeff Lurie have been hiding silently in the NovaCare Complex, steadfastly refusing to explain their actions throughout probably the most dramatic offseason in franchise history.
I want to believe this is all going to lead somewhere else, but I don’t see how.
I want to be patient, but right now it’s almost impossible.
I want to believe in Chip, but right now it’s really hard.