Is Chip Kelly Planning to Trade for Marcus Mariota?

Finally. After months of speculation from experts insisting that it couldn't be done, Eagles head coach Chip Kelly pulled off the shocking trade that landed him his franchise quarterback, a former Heisman winner, a player selected first overall in the NFL draft.

Only Kelly didn't make a trade with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Tennessee Titans for the rights to the No. 1 or No. 2 overall pick to select Marcus Mariota. 

No, the Eagles head coach dropped a bombshell on the football world as he dealt Nick Foles, a fourth-round pick in 2015 and a second-round pick in 2016 to the St. Louis Rams for Sam Bradford and a fifth-round pick in 2015. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported the trade, and it includes a clause in which the Eagles get back a third-round pick if Bradford doesn't play at all for the Eagles and a fourth-round pick if he plays less than half the snaps. 

In Bradford, 27, the Eagles get a quarterback who was drafted first overall in the 2010 draft, earning Offensive Rookie of the Year before regressing over the two seasons. He suffered a torn ACL midway through the 2013 season and tore the same ACL before the start of the 2014 season. As a result, he's missed the last 25 regular-season games. He hasn't taken a snap in an NFL game since October 2013, before Nick Foles had won a single game as Kelly's starting quarterback. 

Remember that Kelly once said that durability is the best ability, yet he's chosen to hinge his potential future as an NFL head coach on a quarterback who has suffered ACL tears in the same knee in consecutive seasons. 

Year	Record	Yards	TD-to-INT	Rating	PPG
2010	7-9	3512	18-15	76.5	18.1
2011	1-9	2164	6-6	70.5	10.8
2012	7-8-1	3702	21-13	82.6	16.1
2013	3-4	1687	14-4	90.9	19.3
2014	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

For a number of reasons, this trade just doesn't make any sense. None. The Eagles traded an equally talented quarterback for an older player who is frequently injured and will cost $12.985 million against the cap in 2015, per Overthecap. By comparison, Foles will cost just $1.342 million.

What we have now is a head coach who has shown to be obsessed with cap space paying an oft-injured quarterback more money than any other player on his entire team. Kelly also heavily pursued running back Frank Gore and safety Devin McCourty in free agency, although Gore signed with the Colts and McCourty stayed in New England. Don't forget about wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, who rejected the Eagles' offer to re-sign with Andy Reid in Kansas City. Had he succeeded in signing all three, spending approximately $20 million on their combined cap hits for the 2015 season, the Eagles would already be over the cap limit in 2015, considering Overthecap.com's reported total of $23.45 million which also doesn't include cornerback Byron Maxwell's new deal. 

So from a financial standpoint, there are also red flags as to why Kelly would do this deal. But from a player standpoint, Kelly wanting to move on from Foles was understandable. After a record-setting sophomore season in 2013 in which he threw for 27 touchdowns and just two interceptions, Foles regressed in 2014. He threw for 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions and appeared wildly inconsistent and shaky in the pocket. He also suffered a broken collarbone that cost him the final eight games of the season, marking the third time in as many seasons that the now 26-year-old suffered an injury.

Year	Record	Yards	TD-to-INT	Rating	PPG
2013	8-2	2891	27-2	119.2	31.0
2014	6-2	2163	13-10	81.4	22.2

A report surfaced on NJ.com late in the 2014 season that the Eagles' management had already soured on Foles. Another report from NJ.com said that the Eagles had been shopping Foles at the Senior Bowl in an attempt to work out a potential trade for the former third-round pick. A free agent after the 2015 season, Kelly found a way to grab some value for Foles instead of letting him walk for free after the season.

So nobody is surprised that Foles won't be on the 2015 roster. But nobody expected this to happen. It's rare when the fanbase completely agrees on something, but this trade seems to be universally hated, per a poll on Bleeding Green Nation.

It's not even the unprecedented player-for-player trade in which the Eagles clearly emerged as losers. It's the fact that the Rams clearly fleeced the Eagles. There's no question about it. Nick Foles for Sam Bradford straight-up would be a questionable move considering Bradford's excessive salary. After all, don't forget that the Eagles were unable to find any suitable partner for an equally expensive player in DeSean Jackson during the 2014 offseason.

So it's the fact that the Eagles also parted ways with a second-round pick that is simply unbelievable. A quarterback with Bradford's injury history should not be worth a second-round pick by himself, let alone in addition to a clearcut starting quarterback like Foles.

In all, the Eagles gave away a quarterback in a better situation (age, injury history and salary) and two higher draft picks for a quarterback in a worse situation and one lower draft pick. This doesn't make any sense. There's simply no way Kelly is this bad of a general manager. He cannot possibly think that Sam Bradford is the answer to his offense. He could not have wanted to get rid of Foles this badly. 

Just think about it. Kelly clearly saw the limit to his squad in 2014. This was a 10-win team for two straight seasons. He maximized the ability of Nick Foles, LeSean McCoy, DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin before parting ways with each. As former Eagles guard Todd Herremans said, Kelly places his priorities on finding a franchise quarterback and a dominant offensive line. The rest, in his eyes, will just fall into place. He's also not going to acquire a mediocre talent like Bradford after parting ways with his top skill-position players, especially since a lack of talent by his supporting cast was exactly why Bradford failed in St. Louis. 

Everything about this Foles for Bradford trade screams part one of an elaborate plan to move up in the draft for Marcus Mariota. It's no secret that Kelly loves Mariota. He called him the most talented player he ever coached and predicted that he will win multiple Super Bowls. It doesn't make any sense for him to give up this easily, on the first day of free agency, without making a real run at Mariota. 

How does anyone know that Mariota won't fall in the draft? The consensus around the NFL is that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will pick quarterback Jameis Winston with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. The Tennessee Titans, picking second, had a promising season by rookie sixth-rounder Zach Mettenberger, but they also will have Mariota in for a private workout on Thursday, according to FOXSports' Alex Marvez. 

Whether that's just due diligence on their part or serious interest, the expectation here is that Tennessee head coach Ken Whisenhunt would prefer drafting a dominant defensive player like Leonard Williams. Whisenhunt, after all, has preferred veterans like Kurt Warner while showing an inability to groom young talent like Matt Leinart. You could actually say the same about Tampa Bay's Lovie Smith, whose best quarterback was a player he traded for, Jay Cutler, while a number of his homegrown players, like Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton, never panned out in Chicago. 

A report by Bleacher Report's NFL Insider Jason Cole last month claimed that some of the top teams in the draft, like the Bucs and Titans, would prefer Bradford over Winston and/or Mariota because of his low-risk, high ceiling. With Winston, the off-the-field issues are a lot of baggage, and with Mariota, there's the concern that he's too dependent on the offensive system at Oregon to succeed on another team. 

Bradford would be a good fit for either of those teams. So why wouldn't they just trade for him themselves, or take the chance that he and his high salary were released by the Rams? One reason. Marcus Mariota. If you're one of the top two teams in the draft and you want Bradford, do you grab him yourself? Or do you work out a three-team trade with the Eagles and Rams so you can also collect a boatload of draft picks?

Think about it. If Tampa Bay or Tennessee wanted to trade with St. Louis for Bradford, they might need to offer a mid-round pick. But if they wait for him to go to Philly, they can still acquire a tremendous amount of picks with Bradford almost a throw-in part of the trade. 

Perhaps it's denial and an unwillingness by me to accept Sam Bradford as the newest starting quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. But this seems too bad to be true. I don't have any idea how Kelly thinks. I don't think any of us do. it just seems that there is no way Kelly is going to all the trouble of shaping his roster with players he hand-picked only to settle for a mediocre, injury-prone, expensive option at quarterback.

His plan at the beginning of the offseason seemed obvious: load up on defensive talent through free agency and trust the scheme to make the offense work with cheap talent. For the most part, Kelly sees players he wants and he goes to get them, often unconcerned about price. Why would he do that for a cornerback but not for HIS quarterback?

Everything feels like he will find a way to draft Mariota. Although there's a chance Mariota is available with the sixth pick, it doesn't seem like Kelly is the type to take chances. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and say there's a better chance he trades with Tampa Bay than Tennessee. He needs to be able to guarantee that he gets his guy in the draft. 

Trading for Sam Bradford wasn't about the Rams quarterback. Not at all. My expectation is that Bradford won't take a single snap in Philly. He's trade bait, and it's a move Kelly is likely in the process of working out now. 

Instead of a risky trade for a veteran quarterback, this seems more like a brilliant multi-step plan by the league's most daring head coach, a man who will stop at absolutely nothing to eventually acquire his king Duck with one of the top two picks in the 2015 NFL draft.