By Michael McCarthy
The NFL free agent season is only six days old, and no one has had a wilder ride than the Eagles’ Chip Kelly.
Kelly made one stunning move after another. The normally free-spending Cowboys let DeMarco Murray, the league’s top offensive player, walk – to Kelly and division rival Philly.
Giving Kelly the keys to the kingdom in Philly after he won his power struggle with GM Howie Roseman led to the kind of bartering rarely seen in the NFL. Kelly fully believes in the offensive system he brought from Oregon and has gone 20-12 in his two regular seasons with the Eagles. His vision of the players he wants is undeterred by cost – QB Sam Bradford brings a $16.58 million cap hit; RB Murray will get $42 million over five years.
Not only is Kelly changing the face of his franchise by moving around so many pieces, he might be altering the way teams look at making trades. As the salary cap continues to rise through the remaining six years of the labor agreement and all 32 clubs have more spending power, bold steps (leaps really) could become less frightening throughout the NFL.
Maybe the most puzzling approach to free agency came out of Dallas. Owner Jerry Jones has never met a talented, high-priced free agent he wasn’t enamored of. Yet, in great part due to his son, team COO Stephen Jones, the Cowboys have been quiet. They kept All-Pro WR Dez Bryant, their top priority, but that deal and previous contracts put them in salary cap purgatory. Stephen Jones seems determined to get the Cowboys out of it.
With months of free agency to come, and the draft on April 30-May 2, there are plenty of off-field machinations ahead. But so far, it appears the three pretenders in the AFC East have closed in a bit on New England. The balance of power in the NFC East might have gone with Murray from Dallas to Philly.
