Midnight Thoughts: McCoy for Alonso

Chip Kelly does nothing conventionally.  Seriously…nothing. Trades like the one that happened yesterday are phenomenally uncommon in the NFL.  The MLB trading deadline is a mid-Summer beat writer’s dream.  The NBA & NHL sees players moved on a near nightly basis.  The NFL is a different animal altogether.  The NFL trading deadline usually passes without a move worth mentioning.  Significant NFL trades happen rarely outside of draft week & typically always involve picks.  Straight-up player-for-player trades are exceedingly rare.  But never say never because on Tuesday evening—following a day where Cary Williams’ release was bound to be the back page of Wednesday’s Daily News—the Eagles agreed in principle to ship LeSean McCoy to Buffalo in exchange for Kiko Alonso.  The trade was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter. 

The relationship between McCoy & Kelly had always been complicated at best.  Kelly seldom praised McCoy’s accomplishments and always seemed to want more from his star RB.  McCoy, in similar discourse, has been known to speak out against some of Kelly’s decisions: whether they be the training regimen, roster moves, or game-time decisions.  Though the two seldom seemed to be in concert, it was obvious the organization—read Jeffrey Lurie & Howie Roseman—valued McCoy: having signed him to a five-year, $45 million dollar contract extension, with ~$20M guaranteed, in May, 2012.  That is a lot of cash for a position where value has precipitously dropped in recent years.  That said, McCoy certainly earned the payday.  Here are his some basic statistics for his career:

Any way you slice them, that is a hell of a career in Midnight Green.  He is the leading rusher for this organization & his time here will, eventually, be remembered fondly.  So why move him now? The answer is exceedingly simple.  Here are some other pertinent facts:

The average NFL running back lasts 2.57 years in the league.  McCoy is set to enter his seventh. (per statista.com)

This means the average RB plays in less than 48 career games.  McCoy has already played in 90.

According to ESPN’s Kevin Seifert—in an April, 2014 article—it is reasonable to expect a running back’s production to decline after his age 27 year in the NFL.  McCoy turns 27 this summer. (NOTE:  you can find the article here: http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/123542/inside-slant-running-back-cliff-after-age-27

The simple truth is that McCoy’s salary is too large to justify for a back with nearly 1800 career touches under his belt.  You don’t need to be Sam Hinkie to make this call.  The only question was this: could Chip Kelly do a better job selling McCoy than he did with DeSean Jackson?  Make no mistake, WIP & The Fanatic phone lines will be jammed all day tomorrow with callers wanting to incinerate Kelly’s personnel decision making after jettisoning his leading WR & leading rusher in back-to-back offseasons.  These two decisions—though similarly driven by money—are NOT the same.  Firstly, DeSean Jackson was infamously cut from the roster and the Eagles received precisely nothing for their troubles: aside from cap relief.  That was a flat-out blunder.  With McCoy, on the other hand, the Eagles are getting not only $10M of cap relief but are also getting a bright prospect in Kiko Alonso in return.

Alsonso played college ball at—you guessed it—the University of Oregon.  He was the Bills’ second round & 46^th overall draft pick in 2013.  He will be 25 years old when the 2015 season kicks off & is 6’3” 238 lbs.  He started all 16 games in his rookie year and played 1176 snaps: logging 2 sacks, 13 QB hurries, 84 tackles, and four interceptions.  According to ProFootball Focus, he was the 9^th best inside linebacker in the NFL.  This was as a rookie.  He was the only defensive player nominated for the Rookie of the Year award and won the Defensive Rookie of the Year award going away. 

Unfortunately, he tore his ACL working out prior to the 2014 season and was unable to improve upon his rookie year in his sophomore campaign.  This was the second time in his football life he had sustained such an injure: blowing out his other  ACL while playing for Chip Kelly’s Oregon Ducks in 2010.  It should be noted that the following year, he led the Ducks to the Rose Bowl & was named the Defensive Player of the Game.  The guy has a history of injuries, sure, but he is young & has come back from them before. 

Alonso is scheduled to make just $1.7M this year and is under contract through the 2016 season.  This guy—assuming a full recovery—coupled with guys like Mychal Kendricks, Fletcher Cox, Vinny Curry, etc. could form a defense the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Philadelphia since—all due respect to Jim Johnson & Co.—the early ‘90s. 

But was it enough?  Is the injury-risk ILB from Eugene worth a perennial thousand-yard rusher?  Who got fleeced here?  If Chip wanted to trade McCoy, is it possible he took the first offer he got too early? Could he have used McCoy as a piece to move up in the draft—similar to the standard trades from NFL history—to make a run at Mariota?

Right now, there is simply no way to know the answers to these questions.  On Tuesday, March 10^th—when free agency opens—we may have a better idea of the master plan developed at the NovaCare Complex.  If a penny saved is truly a penny earned, the Chip, Ed, Howie, & Jeffrey have an awful lot of mad money to spend that rainy day.  If that money is used to sign a young, talented offensive lineman…a shut-down cornerback…a ball-hawking safety…a pin-his-ears-back edge rusher…then we have to completely reevaluate this deal.  Isn’t that like turning your Bird in the hand into two from the bush?  What if they make a run at DeMarco Murray & simultaneously make the Cowboys a weaker divisional foe?   You only have to look at Zach Ertz, Darren Sproles, etc. to know that Kelly loves acquiring guys who have beaten him in the past. 

The point here is this: we can’t fully evaluate this trade yet.  We may not be able to do so for several  years.  Right now, with the information at hand, we know that one players is beginning his NFL career while the other has already flourished in the league for the better part of a decade.  Based on that information alone, it seems the Eagles sold high on McCoy.  What they do with their profits, however, remains to be seen.