By David F. Cohen
Eagles coach Chip Kelly has set the record straight.
He finally offered some insight into his thinking about recent roster moves, and one that was rumored to be in the cards but which he knocked down as quickly as you could say:
“Mortgaging the future for Marcus Mariota.”
One thing Kelly made very clear during an impromptu press conference: The Eagles are all in on new quarterback Sam Bradford and have no plans — now anyway — to make a draft day play for Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota.
“Let’s dispel that right now,” Kelly said. “I think that stuff’s crazy. You guys have been going with that stuff all along. I think Marcus is the best quarterback in the draft. We will never mortgage our future to go all the way up to get somebody like that because we have too many holes to take care of.”
Kelly, in his typically feisty mood with reporters, later said that a team had been offered a first-round pick in exchange for Bradford on Wednesday morning. Kelly expressed confidence in his in-house options, which include recently re-signed Mark Sanchez. Kelly was asked if Bradford was his quarterback moving forward.
“Both Sam and Mark are,” he said. “And I think we have to have two. It was really essential for us to get Mark back here and then when the opportunity with St. Louis came up to get Sam, same exact thing. Do you want to lose Nick Foles? No, you don’t want to lose Nick Foles, but you have to give something up to get something. The deal with Sam Bradford, if he never tore his ACL, he’d never be traded.”
Kelly recruited Mariota when the coach was at Oregon, leading to months of speculation that theEagles will attempt to move up in the first round to select the Heisman Trophy winner. Mariota is expected to be a top 10 pick; the Eagles select 20th overall on April 30 in Chicago.
