The Philadelphia Eagles and head coach Chip Kelly turned a lot of heads and caused even more to shake in disbelief after they traded a 2016 second-round pick and former starting quarterback Nick Foles to the St. Louis Rams in exchange for a player that was once the first-overall selection in the 2010 NFL Draft but who, at the time of the deal, hadn't touched an NFL field since the previous August and hadn't taken a regular season snap in nearly 18 months, in quarterback Sam Bradford.
In short, it made a lot of people wonder whether Kelly, the NFL's most recent version of a mad scientist, really knew what he was doing and, further, really was long for the NFL after all.
You can add another voice to the chorus of potential Kelly detractors, as Mark Eckel of NJ.com recently spoke to an unnamed NFL executive who agreed to break down the Eagles roster this offseason. Up first was the quarterback position and, not surprisingly, Bradford.
"I understand they gave up on Foles,'' the executive said, via Eckel. "But I don't know why they're building up Bradford so much. I'm still confused about that whole deal. You can only talk about him being the first pick of the draft (in 2010) for so long. What has he done since then?
"If Bradford had gone anywhere else you wouldn't even be talking about him. He's been hurt the past two years and even when he was healthy, he was just average. But he's with Chip Kelly, so there's hope I guess. Chip Kelly is the one guy who can make Bradford a success.''
When faced with the question of choosing between Foles, who posted a fantastic 27-2 touchdown-to-interception ratio during a magical 2013 run and Bradford, the executive struggled to decide which player he'd rather move forward with.
"I don't know,'' he said. "They got the most out of Foles (in 2013). So it's like I said, I want to see what Chip Kelly does with (Bradford). And the other question is can he keep him healthy?'
When healthy, there's really no question which of the two quarterbacks is more talented - Bradford was the first-overall pick for a reason, putting together a pre-draft workout for the ages, which NFL senior analyst Gil Brandt dubbed "the best quarterback workout by a draft prospect" that he'd seen since Troy Aikman.
Bradford followed that up by winning Offensive Rookie of the Year and looking every bit like the potential star the Rams braintrust once thought he could be. Since then, of course, things have gone off the rails for Bradford and he's struggled to stay healthy and perform consistently when he is on the field.
The Eagles and Kelly are certainly taking a calculated risk by both acquiring Bradford and looking at him as their potential starter for the foreseeable future, but when limited starting quarterback options exist and you become certain, as Kelly obviously did, that the guy you already had in place wasn't going to develop beyond his present state, it requires outside-the-box thinking and a little luck to provide an answer at the game's most important position.
