The Philadelphia Eagles won the Kalen Ballage-Jay Ajayi trade

Kalen Ballage is a cautionary tale for the Philadelphia Eagles.

For the sake of journalistic integrity, I want to get this out of the way right from the jump: I’m a massive fan of Kalen Ballage.

I’ve stumped for the Philadelphia Eagles giving Ballage a chance earlier this offseason, loved the former Arizona State Sun Devil coming out of college, and may just be his biggest fan outside of the Ballage family.

Is that all me? Did I get my evaluation wrong of Ballage coming out of college? Maybe so but now that the 24-year-old rusher is officially on the open market, released by the Dolphins to very little fanfare, the Eagles have virtually no reason not to at least give the college standout a chance to turn heads over the final two weeks of camp, right?

More from Section 215

Just kidding, the Eagles (probably) don’t need to add another marginal running back to their current stable. They have Miles Sanders, Corey Clement, and Boston Scott locked for the 2020 season and a number of impressive secondary options in Mark Warren II, Elijah Holyfield, and the self-proclaimed fastest man on the team, Adrian Killins. At best, Ballage is the fourth-best option of that group and may not even be that.

But what we can do is compare Ballage to his predecessor, Jay Ajayi, and finally put a pin in the trade that helped the Eagles bring a Lombardi Trophy back to the City of Brotherly Love.

Remember when the Eagles were a player away from a deep playoff run in 2017, riding high on a 7-1 record? Well, the Eagles decided the player they needed was another power back to pair up with LeGarrette Blount to form a thunder-and-thunder one-two punch to dictate the pace of any given game and run out clocks with a third-quarter lead. This led Howie Roseman to flip a 2018 fourth-round pick – the fourth-round pick he received from the New England Patriots for Eric Rowe – to the Miami Dolphins to steal their lead rusher Ajayi, who’d finished out the previous season with the third most yards of any back in the league.

While a lot has been written about why Ajayi was traded then and how the moved turned out in hindsight, we often forget that the Dolphins used the pick they received from the Eagles to selected their own perceived running back of the future in Ballage, or at least that was the idea at the time.

In actuality, Ballage averaged 3.0 yards-per-attempt over his two year NFL career, including a brutal 1.8 ypc in 2019. He was an ineffective pass blocker, a nothing burger in the passing game, and an unmotivated runner. Outside of an electrifying 75 yard run for the Dolphins as a rookie, Ballage’s tenure in Miami was downright ordinary, a far cry from his college performances at Sun Devil Stadium.

That’s the thing about Ballage: In college, he was the man. Measuring in at 6-foot-2, 231 pounds, Ballage looked like Derrick Henry but played like Darren Sproles, weaving through traffic with ease as both a rusher and receiver out of the backfield. Heck, Arizona State would even give Ballage looks as a wildcat quarterback, a deadly look that helped him pick up six touchdowns in an incredible outing against Texas Tech.

Check out the highlights from that game here, they still hold up.

Granted, Ballage only passed the century mark once over his four years in Phoenix, but clearly that didn’t stop the Dolphins from using a fourth-round pick to procure his services – the very same fourth-round pick they received from the Eagles for Jay Ajayi one season earlier.

Then again, the Dolphins also drafted Kenyan Drake in the third round two years prior after a similarly-unsuccessful college tenure at Alabama so maybe they just aren’t the best evaluators of talent.

Assuming Ballage does pass through waivers and become an unrestricted free agent, he surely will have suitors across the room, maybe even with a team like the Eagles who are intrigued by his scheme versatility and electrifying college tape, but it’s hard to imagine any team looking for an immediate contributor giving the 24-year-old’s agent a ring. At best, Ballage may be able to parlay that perceived upside into a practice squad offer, but with no preseason to prove doubters wrong, even that is a less than sure thing.

Ajayi, conversely, is out of the NFL altogether due to a string of unfortunate lower body injuries dating all the way back to college but still finished out his run in South Philly with more yards, touchdowns, and carries than his South Beach counterpart despite appearing in 10 fewer games.

Say what you will about Ajayi now, but I wouldn’t trade his 11 games of action for the Eagles in 2017 for four years of Ballage.

3 winners and losers from training camp thus far. dark. Next

Do you remember when the Philadelphia Eagles traded up the select Donnel Pumphrey in the 2017 NFL Draft? Pumphrey spent three separate summers with the Eagles without playing a single regular-season game and is all but out of the league at the tender age of 24. Why is this relevant? Well, Pumphrey has more rushing yards as a senior, 2,133, than Ballage had over his entire college career. Is it really that surprising that he struggled to transition to football’s highest level when he couldn’t even dominate Pac-12 defenses? I guess the Dolphins and I need to take the L on that one.

UPDATE: Per Ian Rapoport, the Dolphins have actually decided to trade Kalen Ballage to the Jets for a conditional late-round pick, so I guess the saga continues on after all.

Home/Philadelphia Eagles