Up until Monday, it was possible to understand what Sam Bradford was doing after the Eagles moved up in the draft to take Carson Wentz and essentially relegate Bradford to his spot on the menu as yesterday's potatoes.
Even if you didn't agree with Bradford when he stopped attending team activities and requested a trade, at least the rationale made some sense. We can debate forever the notion that a guy who worked to come back from three serious surgeries might not have the resolve to compete, but there was no getting around the fact that his chance to be the long-term starter here had been seriously diminished.
Bradford was being asked to take an offense that isn't very talented, and will be installing a new system, and stake his supposed future here on how that worked out, while getting banged around another season for a team that had already chosen his replacement.
Nobody's holding a bake sale for Bradford, the timing of whose career has been remarkably lucrative, but you could see how he might view his most recent contract signing as a bait-and-switch maneuver by Howie Roseman and the Eagles.
So, did Bradford really pull a "never mind" on Monday when he returned to NovaCare having achieved nothing in the last two weeks aside from the eternal enmity of a large portion of the fan base that will be judging him this coming season? It certainly seems that way.
There may be things that have taken place offstage, things of which we aren't aware. Maybe the Eagles promised they would try to honor Bradford's request before training camp but would be in a better position to do so if he is in the building. Maybe there's already something in the works. Or maybe the guy just caved.
If that last possibility is what happened, Bradford was done a disservice during this process by agent Tom Condon, who is extremely experienced, extremely powerful, and doesn't usually make this sort of miscalculation.
Condon's client list, as the lead representative for CAA Football, also includes quarterbacks Drew Brees, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Eli Manning, Robert Griffin III, Tony Romo, Matt Ryan, Matt Stafford, and Alex Smith. He made his big splash as the agent for Peyton Manning, but Condon's NFL savvy is about more than just his client list. He played guard in the league for 12 years, studied toward his law degree during the offseasons, and worked within the NFLPA while still playing.
To advise Bradford to request a trade would be to ignore the negative financial implications that trading him meant for the Eagles, and to also ignore the scant market for his services. To advise it would be to get into a war of wills with Roseman, a phoenix reborn with power and influence beyond any he previously held. In other words, not that great an idea.
"If you're on a two-year contract and the second pick in the draft is behind you, then you better really play well, because you're going to hear it from the fans if you don't," Condon said previously on SiriusXM NFL radio. "You better play well or your teammates are going to look at you sideways and wonder about when the next guy is going to step in. [They] understand you're a short-term guy, and you're going to be out of there even if you play well, because you can hopefully be traded or something like that before your contract expires. Sam would like to forgo all of that."
Condon painted a no-win situation for Bradford. Play poorly, and you are out. Play well, and you are still out. It's difficult to argue with the logic, but drawing that line in the sand requires a willingness to stand behind it. Bradford crossed it Monday, and chalk up another win for the Eagles.
Of the eight veterans acquired during Chip Kelly's brief window of absolute control, either by trade or through free agency, only Bradford and Ryan Mathews remain. Kiko Alonso, Byron Maxwell, Walter Thurmond, DeMarco Murray, Seyi Ajirotutu, and E.J. Biggers are all gone. Those deletions represent a symbolic settling of scores that will eventually be completed. The organization wants to win but doesn't appear to want any confusion about who contributed to that winning, and it certainly won't include Kelly.
If that is Bradford's greatest sin _ that he was Kelly's idea _ he might have been able to overcome it with the fans. But not any longer. He and Condon only predicted his eventual exit before. Now they have made it a certainty, and by coming back to work, made it a certainty on the Eagles' terms, not his.
Whether Bradford received the advice in his ear or from within his own head doesn't really matter. He was either wrong to listen to it in the first place, or to stop listening to it Monday. Take your pick. It can only be one or the other.
