In the 2013 NFL draft, the Dolphins loved Dion Jordan, and thought the Eagles loved him, too. Now the Dolphins would love to get rid of Jordan, and would love to have the Eagles be the ones to take him off their hands.
Jordan played for Eagles coach Chip Kelly at Oregon, so the Dolphins thought in 2013 that they’d have to move ahead of the Eagles in order to draft Jordan. And that’s what they did: The Eagles owned the fourth overall pick, so the Dolphins packaged their first-round pick (No. 12) and their-second round pick (No. 42) to move up and draft Jordan with the third overall pick.
Now that looks like a huge mistake. Jordan has been a major disappointment, and the Dolphins are sidestepping questions about whether they see any role for him on the team at all.
That has led to talk that the Dolphins could trade Jordan to the Eagles, but there’s just one problem: We really have no reason to believe that Kelly wants Jordan, other than the fact that Kelly seems to like his old Oregon players. Just because Kelly likes Oregon players who have been productive, like Kiko Alonso, that doesn’t mean he would like an Oregon player who has been a bust, like Jordan.
So if Kelly does like Jordan, the Dolphins would surely be happy to trade him to Philadelphia at a bargain price. But that’s a big “if.” All the talk about Kelly’s interest in Jordan seems to be based on assumptions, and we’ve learned this offseason that we should never assume we know what Chip Kelly will do.