Assuming you can believe a word that came out of his mouth Wednesday, Chip Kelly cleared up at least some of the confusion about his stunning offseason overhaul of the Eagles.
That’s a big assumption, though.
Kelly surprised the Philadelphia media Wednesday by speaking at the team’s introduction of Sam Bradford a day after Kelly left the rest of the NFL scratching its head with the trade that sent Nick Foles to the Rams.
And what a delightfully bonkers press conference it was, as Kelly insisted with a straight face he had received an offer of a first-round pick for the oft-injured Bradford from an unnamed team that very morning.
Kelly touched on numerous topics, but first things first: Bradford was brought in to be the Eagles’ starting quarterback and not as a bargaining chip for Kelly to make his much-rumored move up in the draft to take former Oregon pupil Marcus Mariota.
“Let’s dispel that right now,” Kelly said of the Mariota speculation. “I think that stuff’s crazy. I think Marcus is the best quarterback in the draft, [but] we will never mortgage our future to go all the way up to get somebody like that, because we have too many other problems to take care of.”
Kelly then strongly endorsed Bradford — even though Bradford is coming off a second ACL tear and admitted at Wednesday’s press conference that he isn’t recovered yet — and tried to reinforce that with the alleged offer of a first-round pick.
That was far from the only whopper Kelly told, though. He also tried to claim he had nothing to do with the offseason power struggle that got Eagles GM Howie Roseman demoted and personnel chief Tom Gamble fired.
The moves were all owner Jeff Lurie’s doing, Kelly said, even though Lurie had just promoted his protégé Roseman days before suddenly demoting him and even having his office moved away from Kelly’s.
“I didn’t make any suggestions [to Lurie],” Kelly said. “I just talked about the vision of what this thing is, and he came back to me with what he wanted to do and how he wanted to run it.”
Here were more Kelly musings:
* Blamed Roseman for the Eagles’ 2014 draft that is already under fire for producing first-round pick Marcus Smith, who barely played as a rookie;
* Claimed he still has a good relationship with Roseman;
* Blamed the Bills for leaking news of the LeSean McCoy trade last week before Kelly could get in touch with the star running back, who contradicted that version Wednesday by saying he learned of the deal by way of text messages from friends.
Never a dull moment with the Chipper.
The Colts stayed busy with their fifth major free-agent signing Wednesday and are now favorites to win the 2011 Super Bowl.
Andre JohnsonAPJust kidding, although Indianapolis GM Ryan Grigson is leaving himself open to digs as four of the five newcomers are over the age of 30. That includes the latest signee, 32-year-old former Texans wideout Andre Johnson.
Defensive lineman Kendall Langford (27) is the only Colts signee under 30 so far. The other graybeards: linebacker Trent Cole (31), running back Frank Gore (31) and offensive tackle Todd Herremans (31).
Getting older and slower isn’t the recipe for NFL success, but Grigson has one of the league’s best young quarterbacks in Andrew Luck and is obviously loading up to go for it all in 2015.
It’s hard to argue with that, considering the Colts were just a game away from the Super Bowl last season and all the over-30 additions are thought to still have at least a little something left in the tank.
Ndamukong Suh’s record-setting contract with the Dolphins — $114 million over six years, including $60 million guaranteed — became official Wednesday, and Miami admitted the NFL is poking around the entire situation.
That’s because the deal obviously was brokered during the league’s three-day negotiating window last weekend, even though teams aren’t allowed to talk money or make any formal agreements.
“They may be looking into it, but we don’t think there’s anything here,” Dolphins owner Steve Ross said.
Ross shouldn’t be surprised if the league ends up disagreeing with him.
