Things move quickly in the NFL and this morning's trade of Sam Bradford to the Minnesota Vikings was no different.
Eagles GM Howie Roseman stepped to the podium this afternoon to discuss the blockbuster deal, which sent a 2017 first-round pick and a 2018 fourth-round pick back to Philadelphia, and the motivating factors behind the trade.
"No, not really," Roseman said, when asked if they were considering moving Bradford. "We were going forward and it didn't seem realistic to play 'that game' and really, when we first got the call, it wasn't really a strong consideration because of what [Bradford] meant to our football team right now."
The Vikings were left desperate for a quarterback earlier this week when their starting QB, Teddy Bridgewater, was lost for the season with a knee injury. As a team with playoff aspirations, the Vikings were searching for a veteran starter who could potentially fill those hopes.
As for the Eagles, Roseman noted that this deal is a step toward their goal of building a championship caliber team.
"We felt like it was a good opportunity for both teams," Roseman explained. "In their situation, with the football team they have, it was a good opportunity for them to get a quarterback of Sam's caliber and, at the same time, we felt like with the situation we were in and how our depth chart looked, not only at the quarterback position, but going forward by adding these picks and getting that cap room to put back into our football team, that would serve us well, too."
As for the Eagles current depth chart, Roseman made it a point to say that the team is trying to build their team through their offensive and defensive lines. As it stands right now they currently have 11 defensive linemen and 10 offensive linemen, but things could change, especially with the impending Lane Johnson suspension, something that Roseman would not comment on.
Despite this move looking like the team taking a step back, Roseman scoffed at the idea, noting that the organization has a lot of veteran players with a "win-now" mindset.
"Our job is to try to build something great and I also think it would be [a disservice] to our veteran players to discount them and the effort they put in," Roseman said. "We have a lot of talented players on this roster, but at the same time we're trying to build something great and we have an opportunity with this [trade] to get back into the first round of the 2017 draft. get a pick in 2018, which we thought was important, and utilize that cap space to groom the team in other areas."
With Bradford now out of the picture, it seems like Carson Wentz will be pushed on to the field as soon as his ribs heal up. Although Roseman and head coach Doug Pederson were adamant in their belief that Wentz needed to be groomed and brought in slowly over the course of his rookie year, the GM claimed that Wentz's attention to detail and work ethic made them feel like he will be ready to play sooner, rather than later.
As far as the roster cuts are concerned, the biggest surprise among the names that didn't make the team was probably Najee Goode, a veteran linebacker who has spent the last three seasons with the Eagles. Roseman said that Goode was one of the tougher decisions the Eagles' brass had to make, but the team has just four linebackers on their 53-man roster right now and that the team would probably shake things up a bit in the coming days and add another linebacker.
