Patrick Willis to Philadelphia Eagles Trade Rumor Is Nonsense

Rich Smith of the @ALLsportsINTEL Twitter handle may have just exploded the internet for San Francisco 49er and Philadelphia Eagle fans.

At approximately 5PM EST, Smith tweeted,

"

NFL TRADE UPDATE- Source close to situation Reporting that Eagles and 49ers are in negotiations on a trade Asante Samuel for Patrick Willis.

"

This has caused 49esr fans to freak out and Eagles fans to rejoice.

Patrick Willis is the best young middle linebacker in the game. Stealing him from San Francisco for a 30-year-old cornerback would be one of the biggest coups in NFL history, especially considering the rest of the moves the Eagles made this week.

Willis would be joining Nnamdi Asomugha, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Ronnie Brown, Jason Babin, Vince Young and Cullen Jenkins as another marquee player to make the move to Philadelphia this week.

Would is the key word above. He is not going to.

The 49ers are in desperate need of a cornerback but will not give up a potential Hall of Fame linebacker for Asante Samuel. Willis is only 26-years-old and in the prime of his career that already includes him racking up 595 tackles in four seasons.

Asante Samuel is a very good corner. He's made four Pro Bowls, but you cannot compare the two players.

Samuel will be remembered as a decent corner on some decent teams but Willis may go down as a top linebacker of all time.

It would be a complete fleecing and no one, not even in an NFL front office, is dumb enough to make this move.

The trade is also seemingly just an insane rumor cooked up by a relatively unknown source. Smith has only 134 followers as of me writing this. He even tweeted at around 5:55PM EST:

"

I enjoy posting the deals that are in the works and the almost happened deals, makes for interesting debates, Willis Samuels a RUMOR.

"

He has spent most of the time defending his tweet against a massive number of interested people trying to get more information out of him. It seems that there is nothing else besides that it comes from an ‘anonymous source close to the talks.’

Rich Smith has little credibility and therefore this rumor is exactly what it sounds like: untrue.