The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Sam Bradford Deal

      Remember at the beginning of NFL Free Agency last year when we all thought the Philadelphia Eagles traded Nick Foles and the 20th overall pick in the draft to the St. Louis[now LA] Rams for Sam Bradford and the 10th overall pick?  Then remember how it actually turned out to be essentially Nick Foles and this year's 2nd round pick for Sam Bradford and some late round conditional pick action barring circumstances?  AND THENNNN remember when some of us crazy Marcus Mariota loving SOB's thought that it took so long for Bradford's jersey that he was bound to be traded to Tennessee or Cleveland to help the Eagles move up in the draft to select Marcus Mariota?...Well, what we ended up with was Bradford who was always an after thought and was never really wanted.  Fast Forward to a little less than a year later and what do we have?  An Eagles team that finished 7-9, missed the playoffs, fired "Emotional Intelligence-less" Head Coach Chip Kelly, and hired "Well Golly Jee" Andy Reid clone Doug Pederson to take Chip's place at the helm, while Sam Bradford was able to stay health for 14 of 16 games but put up below-average numbers. 

      Yesterday, there were rumblings by many sources around the team and the NFL that the Eagles and the Bradford brass were working on a deal to keep Sam in Philadelphia, nothing official happen.  Today as of 4 PM EST, the last day to place the dreaded franchise tag on players, the tag was not placed on Sam Bradford so some thought maybe now he will test the market, then at 4:21 PM EST ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter dropped this bomb...

Then more details came out as Adam Schefter followed-up with a tweet stating that the deal is for, as he said, 2 years, as well as $36 million in full and $26 million of it guaranteed.  As the news broke it took a little more time for all of the details in regards to the contract to come to light and enter Sports Illustrated and ESPN NFL Contributor Andrew Brandt(@andrewbrandt) with the numbers via his verified Twitter account below.

 6:41 PM - 1 Mar 2016

"Some details on Bradford/Eagles deal: of $26M total guarantee, $22M fully guaranteed upon signing.  $18M in 2016, up to $20M w/playoff wins."

6:48 PM - 1 Mar 2016

"Bradford details continued: $11M signing bonus, $7M salary in 2016. $4M of 2017 salary fully guaranteed, another $4M guaranteed for injury.

7:02 PM - 1 Mar 2016

"Bradford gets fully secured $22M, $2M more than Tag w/playoff upside.  Eagles get 2nd year option with $4M risk, another $4M if major injury.

7:54 PM - 1 Mar 2016

"Last note on Bradford: $4M roster bonus next March, so could make $26M over next 12 mths.  If cut before bonus due, earned $22M for one year."

These tweets were not hard to follow but to break Andrew Brandt's info down into really simple layman's terms:  This is essentially a $22 Million franchise tag or one year deal with a small guaranteed second year option.  

• For the 2016 NFL season Sam Bradford will earn $22 million dollars no matter what.
• Not specified on how many "playoff wins" it would take but Sam could make an extra $2 million if the Eagles make playoffs and win a game or two.  I'm guessing on amount of wins.
• If Bradford is on the roster when the March player salary deadline comes and goes he will earn another $4 million dollars and there are injury risk incentives to keep him satisfied for 2nd year.

Here comes my opinion of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of the contract given to Sam Bradford earlier today.

The Good

 

      THIS IS A TEAM-FRIENDLY CONTRACT! I REPEAT! THIS IS A TEAM FRIENDLY CONTRACT! Obviously you can see my excitement, where I was expecting a deal that would impose more financial stress on the team than necessary.  Throughout the season there were rumblings of 4 years/$72 million or Bradford's agent Tom Condon asking for $25 million dollars a year...please don't get me started on how insanely absurd those rumors are.  As of this weekend I predicted a 4 year/$64 million dollar deal with three of the four years guaranteed, that would not be nearly as team friendly as the actual one given.

 
     If you are reading this and you have consistently been a follower of my twitter account for the past 2-3 months you can see I have been in favor of drafting a Quarterback in this years draft, let alone the first round, and let alone specifically Paxton Lynch out of the University of Memphis.  The details of whom I would like to draft is for another day as the point of this article is to discuss how this deal strictly involves the Philadelphia Eagles for the length of this contract.  With the hiring of Doug Pederson, it would seem Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie wants to rekindle the flame of once removed former Head Coach Andy Reid by having the new Head Coach strapped with a 1st round Quarterback.  With this contract agreed upon between Sam Bradford and the Philadelphia Eagles, it gives the team a chance to develop a young arm for the future.  Also, one last note, Howie Roseman, in my opinion, has done a great job SO FAR when it comes to signing his players to team-friendly contracts.

The Bad

 

      The Bad, Sam Bradford is QB1 as of right now for the season opener of the 2016 NFL season for the Philadelphia Eagles, barring injury or hopefully Paxton Lynch winning the starting job(a long shot, I know!).  Bradford is getting pretty good money for very sub-par play.  Unfortunately, the NFL's going rate for Quarterbacks has allowed average QB's to get good QB money.  There are many stats, charts, graphs, etc. to display how disappointing of a season Bradford had in 2015, let alone his career with a career record as starting Quarterback of 25-37-1.  Bradord has also had a very injury-laden career dating back to college at the University of Oklahoma, so paying $18 million to a guy who essentially gets hurt every other year is not the best circumstance for any team.  The bottom line is that as much as having a sub-par yet overrated Sam Bradford as your starting Quarterback may not be the most ideal situation there is no real long term commitment to him.

The Ugly

 

      This obviously could have been a lot uglier than I once imagined as I have mentioned a couple times before, but the Ugly is mostly on Bradford/Condon's part as to why they would've accept this deal.  This is really a head-scratcher to me as I do not understand why this deal would be agreed upon on Bradford's end.  The Eagles made it clear around a month ago they were not willing to use the franchise tag on Bradford, so both sides knew either a deal needed to be worked out or Bradford would spread his [crippled] wings and fly by testing the waters of Free Agency.  Before the offseason started it seemed like there would be a good handful plus of teams that would be in the market for a starting QB, but situations around the league seemed to have tightened up.  Even if the market for Bradford had completely dried up, why would you take free leverage to Free Agency in a week and see if you could raise the Eagles' price?  Like I said, I can't really make sense of why they did not hit Free Agency, except for maybe they feel they really could not fake a market and would've lost leverage.

A short and sweet overall summation of the deal in my opinion: Good for the Eagles in the fact it is a team-friendly deal and Bad for the fact that 2016 will be a mediocre year most likely with Samuel Jacob Bradford as Offensive Headhoncho.