Episode 848 of LeSean McCoy vs Chip Kelly aired earlier today as Chip Kelly addressed the media to talk about the trade and how he feels it was mishandled.
The general summary of the presser was that Kelly felt that the trade was mishandled and that the story broke before unintentionally and before he had a chance to talk to LeSean despite trying to get hold of him.
So after saying McCoy has a right to be upset and that he essentially tried to get hold of the Bills running back prior to the news of the trade breaking, yet another curveball was thrown.
“I think we did the right thing at the time,” Kelly told the media. “We traded an outstanding running back for a linebacker, but we also traded $700,000 for $11.9 million.”
Suddenly the motives of the trade become a lot clearer. Chip then went on to say:
“So however you look at it, whether it gave us an opportunity to get somebody defensively with that extra money, or it gave us an opportunity because we had to free up money to get Sam.”
Boom. McCoy being traded was part of a bigger picture to sign Sam Bradford. Does this mean that a trade for Mariota was never really on the cards to begin with as many predicted it would be? Kelly closed by saying
“It was a tough decision, but with all those guys we let go this year who were integral to my first two years here, those decisions were made by money. Those decisions weren’t made because we don’t think they’re good football players or we don’t think they’re good people. I think people kind of forget that. When you look at it, that’s a lot of money. We have three running backs this year who their salary cap hit this year is $11.1 million. We had one guy making $11.9 million.”
The motive seems simple enough to understand, the trade was part of a much bigger and complex plan that was designed to save the Eagles money. But he traded away one very productive player for one cheap, unproductive player and went on to sign an expensive replacement who is far less productive and an expensive Quarterback who may..just may be changing the perception of this trade with his current trend of performances.
