What They’re Saying About the Eagles


Photo by: Jeff Fusco

Photo by: Jeff Fusco

Here’s what they’re saying about the Eagles coming off Combine week:

Mike Garafolo reported that the Eagles have upped their offer to Sam Bradford. On Monday, Garafolo joined the 97.5 morning show to shed more light on the situation:

“They’re just trying to get this done, and send a message that, ‘Hey, even though this is a guy that Chip [Kelly] brought in, we like him.’ Howie [Roseman] likes him, Doug Pederson likes him. I gather Frank Reich likes him; John DeFelippo, the quarterbacks coach, likes him. So that was the message in all this: as one person put it to me, Howie is making it clear he wants it done. And usually when Howie says he wants a deal done, that deal usually gets done. That was the point behind the Eagles making the offer.”

Garafolo says the Eagles believe they sweetened the offer enough to where it’s comparable to what he’ll likely get on the market. And what price range might Bradford fall in?

“You’re talking in the $12-15 [million per year] range,” he said.

Tuesday a 4 p.m. is the deadline for clubs to designate franchise or transition players. The prices have been established for such designations, should the Eagles surprise and decide to use the tag on Bradford.

While there has been some speculation about his standing on the roster, Reuben Frank thinks Darren Sproles will be back next season.

Meanwhile, Roob’s colleague over at CSN Philly, Dave Zangaro, offered some parting thoughts from Indy, including his read on the Eagles’ approach to the Bradford situation:

Here’s my take on that: The Eagles are getting in front of this thing and basically saying: “Hey, we’re going to give Bradford a fair offer and if he doesn’t come back, it’s on him.” With this message out there from the team, it won’t look like a failure on their part if they can’t re-sign him.

2. One more thing on Bradford: I still think the Eagles figure out a way to re-sign him. I’m not sure the market for Bradford will be exactly what Condon hoped. For one, I’ve heard it’s unlikely the Texans make a huge push to go after him. And the super-agent definitely had a chance this week to get a better sense of exactly what the market for his client looks like.

3. The Eagles have been doing their homework on potential first-round offensive linemen. They’ve now met with at least Kansas State guard Cody Whitehair, Standford guard Joshua Garnett and Michigan State tackle Jack Conklin. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to draft one of those guys at 13, but they have to be thinking about it. Pederson acknowledged the holes on the offensive line, and when I asked Roseman about not taking an offensive lineman in the last two years, he said it was a priority to get back to it. So they might not take an offensive lineman at 13, but they’re going to take at least one in the draft and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them take a few.

In his latest all-Eagles mock draft, Jimmy Kempski has Carson Wentz falling to the Eagles at 13.

But there’s no way Carson Wentz will make it to the Eagles at pick number 13 overall, right?

Recent history says that quarterback hype this time of year does not match up with reality. We took a look back at mock drafts that were published in February of 2013 and 2014 to see where the experts projected Geno Smith, Teddy Bridgewater, and Johnny Manziel to be drafted…

The moral of the story (and I’ll include myself in this): We (the media) don’t know jack in February.

That said, Wentz is big, he has a good arm, a quick release, he’s surprisingly athletic, and he has a good feel for the game. However, he will encounter concerns about the level of competition he faced at North Dakota State, and the amount of time he actually played there.