A Ticking Time Bomb

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Doug Pederson

The start of the 2016 National Football League season is nearly four months away, but the Philadelphia Eagles have a storm cloud that is hanging over their organization. This past January, Doug Pederson was named as the new head coach of the Eagles. And being that it is customary for a new head coach to immediately draft a quarterback, Pederson traded up to the second overall pick in last month’s NFL Draft to select quarterback Carson Wentz. But the Eagles already had a high priced quarterback on their roster in Sam Bradford.

Philadelphia had acquired Bradford from the St. Louis Rams last year, but that was when Chip Kelly was the Eagles head coach. However Bradford saw the writing on the wall with Wentz coming to town, and he wants out of dodge which won’t be easy.

Sam Bradford

It isn’t set in stone that Wentz will be the Eagles starting quarterback when Week 1 rolls around, but Bradford is not interested in keeping the seat warm for him as the starting quarterback in Philadelphia. However the Eagles didn’t do themselves any favor when they signed Bradford to a two-year extension that is worth $36 million on March 1. The Eagles gave Bradford the impression that he was their guy at starting quarterback, only to turn around and draft a quarterback seven weeks later which isn’t fair to either him or Wentz. It will be tough for the Eagles to simply release Bradford as he counts for $12.5 million towards their team payroll for the upcoming season, while teams aren’t lining to take on the salary of a player such as him that has had an injury prone career.

After the Rams made Bradford the first overall pick of the 2010 National Football League Draft, he has only had two seasons in which he made all 16 starts while he only has a record of 25-37-1 without any postseason appearances. Bradford originally intended to not show up to the Eagles organized team actvities (OTA’s), but he had a change of heart after conferring with his agent Tom Condon. But this twist in the whole scenario is ironic since Bradford claims that Condon was the person who steered him the direction of seeking a trade from the Eagles as it appears time to simply play the blame game.

Carson Wentz

So now with the deck stacked against Bradford in Philadelphia, the only things left for him to do are to beat out Wentz to become the Eagles starting quarterback, remain healthy, and play good enough to get Philadelphia to the postseason for the first time since 2013. And even if Bradford’s long-term future isn’t in Philadelphia, a solid 2016 on his part could catch the eye of another team around the league. But at this point we just have to sit back and see how this situation will play out. However the writing on the wall doesn’t make for a happy ending in Philadelphia.

Sources: Pro-football-reference.com, Sportrac.com

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By | 2016-05-21T10:04:44+00:00 May 21st, 2016|Categories: National Football League|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

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