Foles For Bradford? What Exactly are the Eagles Doing?

The NFL free agency period has officially begun and on Tuesday, it started off with a bang. There were multiple signings and trades all throughout the day. Some of the notable signings was Frank Gore, once believed to be headed to Philadelphia, signing with the Colts and former New York Jets corner back Darrelle Revis, well he is a Jet once again.

There were multiple trades that occurred throughout the day as well and the one that has people scratching their head is the trade that the Eagles and Rams made. The Eagles traded their projected starting quarterback in 2015, Nick Foles, to the Rams for Sam Bradford.

Bradford was the number one overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, but has had a rocky career in the NFL thanks to multiple injuries. Bradford missed practically all of the 2014 season with a severe leg injury and whether or not he will return to 100% is unclear just yet.

The Eagles and Head Coach Chip Kelly obviously are willing to take the risk and traded a proven NFL starting quarterback, in Foles, for a quarterback, in Bradford, that is still trying to make a mark in this league. The move is a head scratcher for a number of reasons, but most of all to me is because of the offense Kelly likes to operate.

Foles wasn’t the quickest or fastest quarterback by any means, but he has much more scrambling ability than Bradford has and in Kelly’s offense the quarterback has to have some ability to move. Bradford was never a mobile quarterback in his college days at Oklahoma and certainly wasn’t while with the Rams.

His mobility was an issue before his leg injury and now coming back from this injury, his mobility will likely be minimized even more so. The Eagles appear to be making moves to set themselves up to make other moves down the road, or either they are just doing a total makeover of an offense that was one of the best in the NFL last season.

The Eagles have already let LeSean McCoy, Jeremy Maclin and Nick Foles go and we haven’t even hit the heart of the NFL free agency period yet. Philadelphia has given Kelly total control of this team and based on his moves it is clear they are all in when it comes to having full trust in Kelly as a coach and decision maker.

The Eagles have been rumored as a team wanting to trade up in the 2015 NFL Draft to try and draft former Oregon Duck quarterback Marcus Mariota. Mariota, the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner, was recruited and played under Kelly at Oregon. Kelly has been rumored as seriously interested in acquiring Mariota somehow to run his up tempo offense at the NFL level.

I can understand this move much more than the Bradford move and maybe the Eagles are indeed setting themselves up for a trade to get Mariota in a few months. It is a long offseason in the NFL, but if today is any indication as to how the next several months will unfold then we are in for one of the greatest NFL off seasons in the history of the sport.