The Philadelphia Eagles have made all kinds of moves in this year’s free agency and some have seemed so outrageous they left fans scratching their heads about the direction of the team. But one thing that has kept many of the Eagles faithful on board was that head coach Chip Kelly was putting together a plan to draft his former Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota. However, that's likely not the case.
ESPN noted that on Wednesday, the head coach finally spoke about what's going on. And just as unexpected as his recent roster moves, was what he said about drafting his old QB in the upcoming NFL draft.
"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 other holes we have to take care of. We're not mortgaging our future for any particular player.”
There it was. The ice-cold dose of reality from the man who is now running the show in Philly.
So where do the Eagles go from here? Well, the team has to hope that the new additions of quarterback Sam Bradford and linebacker Kiko Alonso are healthy enough to play this season. They are both are coming off ACL injuries.
Meanwhile, reports have surfaced that running back DeMarco Murray reached out to Kelly personally about joining the team. Eagles’ safety Malcom Jenkins then tweeted at Murray to join the Birds, which prompted Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant to tweet to a not-so-nice message to Murray.
Of course Bryant needs to stick to “talking about strictly football”, as he has had some serious off-the-field problems and Murray has not.
It's unclear if the Eagles will do anything with the Murray situation. The team just reportedly agreed to a deal with former San Chargers running back Ryan Mathews after trading LeSean McCoy to the Buffalo Bills for Alonso last week.
So we’ll all just have to wait and see what happens next with the team that has become the team to watch in free agency.
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