Eagles News: Is Sam Bradford A Franchise Quarterback?

In the coming months, much of the conversation surrounding the Philadelphia Eagles will be what they should do with pending unrestricted free-agent quarterback Sam Bradford.

Bradford Didn’t Prove He’s A Franchise Quarterback – Bleeding Green Nation

Brandon Lee Gowton of Bleeding Green Nation put together an article analyzing whether or not Bradford did enough in 2015 season to prove that he’s a franchise quarterback.

The conclusion was that he did not.

Bradford put together some decent statistics in the second half of the season that has made a lot of people believe that he improved, but the reality is that a good chunk of his statistics came in either garbage time of blowout losses to the Arizona Cardinals and Washington Redskins, or in a meaningless game against the New York Giants with nothing on the line.

Pederson Wants To Keep Jason Peters – CSNPhilly

While Doug Pederson is undecided about what he wants to do with his free agent quarterback, there’s no doubt about his Pro-Bowl left tackle.

Pederson stated on Wednesday that he believes Jason Peters has at least several years of good football left in him, and wants him to remain with the Eagles.

Peters is still capable of performing well, but there are significant concerns about him as well. He had to come out of literally almost every game in 2015 with various injuries, and his play was already showing signs of decline. Some of the injury situation may have been influenced by Peters’ distaste for former head coach Chip Kelly, but either way it remains a concern.

The Eagles may still need to redo Peters’ contract to keep him around. The team could use some additional cap relief, and his deal is one that screams for a restructure.

Aikman: Eagles Gave Up On Chip Kelly Too Soon – NJ.com

Troy Aikman appeared on Breakfast on Broad, and commented that he believes the Eagles may have pulled the plug on Chip Kelly too soon, citing the fact that Kelly had previously enjoyed two 10-win seasons and should have been given more time to fix the team.

I completely disagree with Aikman.

When I hear people make a case for Chip Kelly to stay, usually the first thing his supporters point to is that he had two 10-6 seasons, which should give him the right to fix the mess he made this year.

But let’s examine those 10-6 seasons a little more closely.

In 2013, the Eagles started out 3-5 before finishing the season 7-1 to win the division and make the playoffs. However, the team was the beneficiary of a pitifully easy schedule. They were matched up with the likes of the Oakland Raiders, Detroit Lions, Aaron Rodgers-less Green Bay, Chicago Bears, Washington Redskins, and the Tony Romo-less Dallas Cowboys. The team certainly played well at the time, but upon looking back at the strength of the  schedule at the time, there’s no doubt the team had a lot going in their favor by being matched up against poor teams.

The 2014 team was the most hollow 10-6 group I’ve ever seen. Few people look beyond the surface of the 10 wins that the team had last season to see them for what they really were. Kelly’s offense struggled heavily at times last season as well. Many of the team’s wins early in the season were fueled by an unrealistic amount of special teams and defensive touchdowns that proved be the difference in games. Without some of these fortunate breaks, the Eagles could have easily been a seven-win team last season.

And despite a 9-3 start that year, Kelly’s team collapsed to a 1-3 finish in the month of December, with the only victory coming in a meaningless season finale with the Giants after the Birds had already been eliminated.

During both seasons, Kelly’s true colors were on display for all to see with his record against winning teams.

In both years combined, the Eagles went 4-8 against teams with records above .500, and again, one of those wins came against a Green Bay team that was without Aaron Rodgers.

When looking at “two 10-6 seasons”, you need to look deeper than the initial stat of 20 victories and recognize that those achievements are actually quite hollow.