Rams coach Jeff Fisher has said that his team only agreed to trade Sam Bradford because Nick Foles was the player the Eagles’ offered, and that the Rams thought Foles could be their franchise quarterback. That meshes with what Chip Kelly revealed at this week’s league meeting: He tried to get the Rams to trade Bradford for draft picks, and agreed to give up Foles only when Foles was what the Rams demanded.
“It went on for a couple weeks,” Kelly said, via the News Journal. “We were trying to keep Nick if we could. It was just at the last second, they wanted players. We were trying to get it done with draft picks, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Presumably, if the Rams had agreed to give up Bradford for draft picks, the Eagles would have kept Foles and let Mark Sanchez walk in free agency. Instead, the Eagles re-signed Sanchez and will have him compete with Bradford for the starting quarterback job.
Despite speculation that Bradford could be turned into a bargaining chip for a trade up in the draft to select Marcus Mariota, everything Kelly says indicates that he thinks highly of Bradford and believes Bradford can run his offense effectively. Bradford is a player Kelly wanted badly -- so badly that he gave up Foles and draft picks to acquire him.