“You’ve got to risk it to get the biscuit.”  Philadelphia Eagles head coach, Chip Kelly, has exemplified this statement with his offseason moves.  Well, kind of, nobody really knows what he’s up to.  Last season, Kelly and the executives of the team met to discuss their plans for the upcoming offseason.  I don’t know the exact details of what was discussed in this meeting, however, Chip Kelly took over the General Managers responsibilities in terms of offseason moves and the upcoming draft.  The Eagles wouldn’t give this relatively new head coach that type of authority if they didn’t think he could vastly improve the team.  The Eagles have had a solid team for the past few years yet haven’t been able to make a serious playoff push.  If Kelly is doing what I think he’s doing, then he’s a football genius and the Eagles could be a serious contender to go to the Superbowl.

First of all, let’s look at what he has done so far this season:

• Traded quarterback Nick Foles for Rams quarterback Sam Bradford
• Re signed backup quarterback Mark Sanchez
• Traded LeSean McCoy to the Buffalo Bills for linebacker Kiko Alonso
• Signed free agent running back Ryan Mathews
• Released veteran linebacker Trent Cole and other players to create cap space
• Signed former Seahawks cornerback Byron Maxwell
• Signed former Cowboys running back Demarco Murray
• Signed former Giants cornerback Walter Thurmond III
• Signed quarterback Tim Tebow

You could say that he’s been busy recently.  The Eagles defense was mediocre last year, and especially struggled with their secondary.  So, he gets one of the best cornerbacks in the league in Byron Maxwell.  This move came at a rather large price.  The contract signed was for six years and sixty-three million dollars.  Then he sought after Walter Thurmond, a starting caliber cornerback who has played with Maxwell before on the Seahawks.  These guys complement each other well and have a good chemistry together.  Probably the most shocking move the Kelly has made this season was sending all time Eagles rushing leader LeSean McCoy to the Bills for second year linebacker Kiko Alonso.  When I saw this, I was surprised that they would trade the face of their franchise, but it was also understandable.  If they couldn’t find another running back to sign they still have two very talented backs is Darren Sproles and Ryan Mathews.  The trade would exponentially improve their defense with Alonso at middle linebacker and it would create cap space to go after another big name.  That big name was Demarco Murray.

You probably recognize the name because he absolutely dominated the league and had the most rushing yards last year with over 1,800.  The way they got Murray is absolutely brilliant.  A few weeks before this happened, they traded starting young gun quarterback Nick Foles for Sam Bradford who just tore his ACL.  I saw this and thought to myself, ‘either Kelly has something up his sleeve, or he has gone power crazy.’  Bradford has torn both ACLs and doesn’t fit the Eagles fast paced style of offense.  The thing is, Bradford and Murray played together at Oklahoma and absolutely dominated.  Bradford recruited Murray over and they gave Murray a bunch of money to replace McCoy.

Alright, now that Kelly has pulled off one of the craziest off seasons ever, there’s still an issue.  Their quarterbacks aren’t very good.  I’m not hating on either Bradford or Sanchez but they just aren’t reliable.  Bradford is injury prone and hasn’t played in an offensive system like this, and Sanchez can get the job done, it’s just not always very pretty.  They could probably wait for the second or third round and get a relatively good quarterback in Bryce Petty or Brett Hundley.  No, that’s not what Kelly wants to do.  He wants Marcus Mariota, the projected number two pick in the draft.  It’s too early to tell if this could happen but if it does, then Kelly just pulled one of the greatest moves in offseason history.  The Tennessee Titans hold the number two pick in the draft and are in need of a quarterback.  It would be reasonable to assume that they would pick Mariota (assuming Winston goes number one overall).  However, the San Diego chargers are also hunting for a new quarterback because Philip Rivers won’t sign an extension.  So here are three teams who all want the same thing.  This is reportedly the possible trade that would shock everyone: Eagles trade up for the second round pick to draft Mariota.  They would trade Sam Bradford and a first round pick to the Chargers and the chargers would send Philip rivers and a second round pick to Tennessee.  The Eagles get Mariota, The chargers get Bradford and some high draft picks, and the Titans get elite veteran quarterback Philip Rivers.  There are so many things that could interfere with this happening, but that would be awesome if it was pulled off.