Dear Eagles: Please Trade Sam Bradford Already

He's a one-year place-holder and he knows it. I don't want him leading the team next season.

(Photo by: Jeff Fusco)

(Photo | Jeff Fusco)

Sam Bradford officially came back to the Philadelphia Eagles a couple of days back when he faced the music of a prying media on the subject of his two-week holdout. And it was a painful comeback.

Bradford came off as a man resigned to the fact that he is not long for the team, saying he’d have to be “pretty naïve” to think he was in the long-range plans of the Eagles, now that they have drafted Carson Wentz.

In other words, Bradford is going to attempt to play this season as a lame duck quarterback, a man who must preserve himself from injury through a long NFL season in order to have another team interested in his services at the end of this year. That should engender a lot of confidence in him from this cryptic fan base, which will notice every yard Bradford does not put his body on the line for out of fear that he’ll get clocked.

The Eagles starting quarterback was nothing though if not honest in his press conference, stating that he staged a two-week holdout because he was stung by the drafting of Wentz and that he “heard he wouldn’t have been in it” for that period of time in the workouts. He also threw his agent, Tom Condon, way under a Greyhound by telling the assembled media that the holdout was his agent’s idea, hinting they tried to use that time to spur a trade between the Eagles and the Denver Broncos.

My problem is this: I don’t want a quarterback who looks at himself as purely a mercenary for a season. I want a guy who bleeds Eagle green and then leads a locker room full of men through the solid culture of what an NFL team should be. In other words, I don’t want Bradford.

I think the Eagles should still trade him to the Broncos and I think that very well could still be possible once Denver sees the disaster of Mark Sanchez, who not only stinks, but now has a broken thumb to nurse through OTA’s. John Elway is a looney toon if he thinks Sanchez can get him through a Super Bowl season. And I think the NFL Hall of Famer will wait until June before he calls the Birds about Bradford.

Sudden Sam, we hardly knew ye.

Postscript: Anyone who thinks the Philadelphia 76ers should choose Brandon Ingram over Ben Simmons with the first pick of the NBA draft in late June can get traded to Denver with Bradford.