Is Andy Reid's Failed Eagles Lions Trade Coach's Greatest Career Accomplishment?

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Andy Reid isn't known for making good decisions.

From questionable third and fourth-down play calls, to strange timeout usage and poor overall clock management and everything in between, Reid's coaching style is somewhere between inconsistent and bizarre. But one of his decisions might have actually saved a player's life.

On Tuesday, the team announced they had agreed to trade running back Ronnie Brown to the Detroit Lions, picking up back and former Eagle Jerome Harrison in return.

Before a traded player can officially join his new team, he has to pass a team physical. Usually, if a trade is voided due to a failed physical, it's related to a bad knee or a lingering back injury. But this time, the trade didn't work out because Harrison had a heretofore unknown brain tumor.

ESPN's Adam Schefter said it best: Without the trade, there would be no need for Harrison to undergo a physical. Without that physical, Harrison wouldn't even know about the tumor. And, especially when it comes to something so serious as a brain tumor, that discovery likely saved Harrison's life.

Initially the Brown-Harrison trade was met with some derision, considering that Brown was one of the myriad players Reid and the Eagles snagged up in the offseason to make their team a playoff contender in 2011.

In fact, the acquisition of Brown in the first place seemed to be a misstep. While the Eagles certainly needed a capable running back to spell starter LeSean McCoy (or to serve as injury insurance), it seemed clear that Brown couldn't be that guy.

But then trading him away after not giving him much of a chance to prove anything to the Eagles wasn't necessarily the best way to handle his situation. But that's typical Andy Reid, following a poor decision with another bad one in an attempt to mitigate the first misstep.

Luckily for Reid, something good did come out of the failed trade; he inadvertently saved Harrison's life. But isn't that just like Reid—ultimately doing something right as a coincidental effect of doing something foolish.

That's as good as good can get for Reid, whose legacy now won't just include his many gaffes, but also that one time he saved a man's life, by accident.