Philadelphia Eagles: Trading LeSean McCoy was always a mistake

On Friday, October 1st, 2021, LeSean McCoy will officially retire as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Needless to say, this comment has been a long time coming.

While McCoy has bounced around the league over the past few seasons, playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020 and in the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019, his time as a dominant bell cow back seemingly always in the mix for a rushing title has long since passed. At best, McCoy would be fighting for a practice squad spot at this point in his career, which surely isn’t worth his time.

But I don’t want to talk about McCoy’s return to the City of Brotherly Love to retire with the team that drafted him. No, I want to talk about the deal that initially shopped him out of town in the first place; one of the worst trades in Philadelphia Eagles history.

Kiko Alonso was a nothing burger for the Philadelphia Eagles.

For a very weird summer in 2015, many a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles tried to convince themselves that trading LeSean McCoy, one of the best rushers in franchise history, for a 25-year-old second-round linebacker drafted out of Oregon – where else? – was a good idea.

Kiko Alonso had a, dare I say, legendary rookie season with the Buffalo Bills. He racked up 159 total tackles in 2013 – highlighted by a 22 tackle performance versus the Cincinnati Bengals –  recorded 11 tackles for a loss, two forced fumbles, and had four interceptions. He was lauded for his soft-spoken, team-first nature and was hyped up for having an ability to quite literally do it all on the defensive side of the ball using his 6-foot-3, 239-pound frame as a literal battling ram versus any ball handler who entered his general vicinity.

Sure, he was suspended at Oregon on multiple occasions for a DUI and burglary, criminal trespassing, and mischief in 2010, and was coming off of a torn ACL that ended his sophomore season before it began, but who would know better than Chip Kelly what Alonso could do on the field? I mean, we’re talking about a guy who drafted Josh Huff and Taylor Hart in the third and fifth-round of the 2014 NFL Draft; clearly, he had an eye for talent.

While McCoy unquestionably was one of the best players in the NFL at his position, said position was largely considered one of the least valuable in the league, whereas the concept of having a three-down coverage linebacker with an insatiable yearning for tackles was at a severe premium.

Granted, the Bills didn’t feel this way, as they happily made the deal and surely wouldn’t take it back, but hey, don’t let the truth get in the way of a good narrative.

Furthermore, Kelly attested that his East-West rushing style literally ran counterintuitive with the between-the-tackles rushing attack he wanted to deploy. Trading McCoy wasn’t just about McCoy for Alonso but McCoy for Alonso, Ryan Mathews, and DeMarco Murray, who was coming off his own reign as the league’s rushing champ.

Sidebar: Why did Kelly sign Ryan Mathews and DeMarco Murray? I get Murray didn’t become available until after Mathews was already in the fray, but that felt like a massive misallocation of resources.

Throw that all together, and what are you left with? A team that traded arguably its best player for a linebacker coming off an ACL injury.

Mind you, this wasn’t the only head-scratching decision of Kelly’s single-season tenure atop the player personnel department. He also traded Nick Foles for Sam Bradford and signed Byron Maxwell to one of the most disproportionately valued contracts in league history.

Once back in power, Howie Roseman quickly righted many of Kelly’s miscues. He traded Alsonso – who had a very meh season in South Philly – and Maxwell to help position the team to draft Carson Wentz and was able to trade Bradford for a pair of picks eventually used to draft Derek Barnett and Josh Sweat in 2017 and 2018.

Heck, Roseman even re-acquired Nick Foles in 2017, which may just go down as his and the Philadelphia Eagles’ best-value free agency signings, period.

But one player Howie Roseman was never able to reacquire was LeSean McCoy, even if he tried on a few occasions… well, until now at least. With one more day left in his career as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles, the pride of Harrisburg Pennsylvania will finally be back in midnight green, even if he won’t be able to help Nick Sirianni’s rushing attack come the team’s Week 4 bout against the Kansas City Cheifs. Fortunately, something tells me he’ll still get one heck of an ovation when he returns to the Linc.