Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Rams Huddle › Here's why the Philadelphia Eagles won the big LeSean McCoy trade
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March 4, 2015 at 6:08 pm #19455
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Here’s why the Philadelphia Eagles won the big LeSean McCoy tradeBy Frank Schwab
It took Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly two years to figure out one simple truth in today’s NFL: You don’t pay running backs big money, not even a really good one.
LeSean McCoy is a really good back and it’s shocking for most people to see a guy drafted in the first few picks of their fantasy league traded to the Buffalo Bills for a linebacker coming off an ACL injury. There are theories that Kelly wants to run off vocal locker room leaders, or that he’s collecting Oregon players like Kiko Alonso, who will come over in the McCoy trade when it’s official (Yahoo Sports’ Eric Adelson had a great read on the Kelly-centric angles to the big trade). Maybe there’s something to that, but I think it’s much simpler. I think Kelly trusts his system to produce a back who can come somewhat close to replicating what McCoy could do, at less than 10 percent of the cost.
And that’s why I think the Eagles won the McCoy-Alonso trade. It made too much sense for them not to do it.
[Check out Shutdown Corner’s full 2015 free agent rankings – click here for offensive players, and click here for defensive players and specialists]
The big numbers in this trade were $24.25 million and $1.69 million. The former is what McCoy is owed the next three years; the latter is what Alonso will make on his rookie contract this year and next, according to Spotrac.
Nobody is spending that much for a running back anymore. McCoy’s cap number this year was slated to be $10.25 million. Buffalo’s Rex Ryan might be the last coach in the league that believes in spending that percentage of a team’s salary cap on a running back, especially one with six years of NFL mileage on him. This quote from guard Todd Herremans, cut by the Eagles this week, about Kelly is telling:
“I think he values the quarterback position in his offense the most. Quarterback and offensive line,” Herremans told PhillyMag.com before the McCoy trade was reported. “I think other than that, I think that he feels like he can kind of, you know, the system will take care of it.”
The Eagles’ next running back is likely not going to be as good as McCoy at his peak. But let’s say the Eagles pick a running back in the third round with the 84th pick. The 84th pick of last year’s draft, Arizona Cardinals defensive end Kareem Martin, got a four-year, $2.8 million deal. At a little more than $700,000 a year, the Eagles would have a back making less than 1/14 of what McCoy was scheduled to make. That extra cap room goes a long way in free agency. You would think about the deal differently if it was announced as something like McCoy for Alonso, cornerback Byron Maxwell and another mid-range free agent addition, and that’s what it might be when all is said and done. And then at running back, can a rookie combined with Chris Polk and Darren Sproles produce more than 1/14 of what McCoy would have? I’d hope so.
There’s also the issue of whether McCoy is on the decline. His yards from scrimmage went from 2,146 in 2013 to 1,474 in 2014. His yards per carry went from 5.1 to 4.2 and yards per catch went from 10.4 to 5.5. There has to be at least a bit of worry that after 1,761 career regular-season touches that McCoy is slipping. And running backs can hit the wall pretty suddenly. That’s one reason nobody invests in them anymore. Maybe McCoy bounces back, because he is an elite talent. Is that a $10.25 million gamble Kelly wanted to take? Obviously not. And is anyone here willing to bet on McCoy still being more productive than Alonso by, say, 2018?
Alonso can’t just be glossed over. He was far from a throw-in on a salary dump. Assuming he’s healthy (and an ACL injury doesn’t generally ruin a 24-year-old’s career, but you never know), the Eagles just added a fantastic inside linebacker. He had 159 tackles as a rookie. Pro Football Focus graded him as the second best inside linebacker in coverage in 2013. The Eagles got a linebacker who they can realistically expect to make a Pro Bowl or five before he’s done. (And on the flip side that’s what the Bills gave up, so even if it’s obvious McCoy isn’t returning to 2013 levels the Bills will keep paying McCoy for two or three years at least to justify trading Alonso.)
We’re in the Disposable Running Back Era in the NFL. Kelly understands that. If he’s right about his system producing a capable running game with or without McCoy (and he probably is right, by the way), he just traded a running back who had more than a 30 percent dip in production last year for a potentially elite three-down inside linebacker and saved more than $9 million in the process. Even if McCoy rebounds and plays at his 2013 level, the Eagles still got a fantastic young inside linebacker and a ton of cap room.
McCoy has been a star player, without a doubt. But it’s hard to see how the Eagles lost this trade.
March 4, 2015 at 6:14 pm #19457wv
ParticipantFascinating personnel decisions
by both teams.w
vMarch 5, 2015 at 4:54 pm #19497wv
Participant===================================
Greg Cosell’s analysis: Breaking down the Eagles-Bills trade
[sports.yahoo.com]
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/greg-cosell-s-analysis–breaking-down-the-eagles-bills-trade-175905938.html
The Philadelphia Eagles are a fascinating team this offseason, and their big trade this week makes them even more interesting.Let’s assume Eagles coach Chip Kelly wants to draft University of Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota. That’s a reasonable assumption, considering all that has been said about it. What that ultimately means is that if the Eagles have any chance of moving up to draft Mariota, they have to give up draft picks, and likely draft picks from this season. A team positioned high enough in the draft for the Eagles to take Mariota will want to get better right away.
So if we assume that’s what the Eagles want to do (that’s not to say it’s a guarantee to happen, of course), the Eagles can’t get better through the draft because they’ll have to give away so many picks. So what do the Eagles have to do? They have to cut cap. And they just got rid of about $10 million of cap charges by trading running back LeSean McCoy.
It’s just my sense – I don’t know it as a fact – that Kelly is far more comfortable with veterans than draft choices anyway. I don’t think he’d mind trading some if he could sign two or three free agents instead. And a free agent like Seattle Seahawks cornerback Byron Maxwell is not going to come cheap.
So the Eagles’ trade might have been done with an organizational philosophy or a bigger plan in mind. But let’s take a closer look at McCoy, who was traded to the Buffalo Bills.
I don’t think McCoy ran as well last season as he has in the past, and certainly not as well as he ran in 2013. His numbers reflected that. But I don’t think that he’s at the end of the rope, considering he’ll be just 27 years old. He’s a very, very good back. But he is a certain kind of runner.
McCoy is a space runner. In 2013, he had a lot of space. All five starters on the Eagles’ offensive line started every game and they were great. McCoy had a lot of room to run. When the Eagles had personnel issues on the line in 2014, McCoy didn’t have that space, and when that happens he tends to bounce runs outside. That’s not necessarily a knock, because McCoy has bounced runs outside and made many phenomenal plays that way. But that’s his style as a runner and if the play isn’t blocked well with initial space and a clear seem, his tendency of bouncing it outside is exacerbated.
Here’s an example from Week 4 at San Francisco. The line didn’t block it great, and with no clear seam McCoy bounced it outside and was stopped for no gain.
McCoy isn’t a sustaining runner, in that when there’s 3 yards for him to get he’s not going to fight through traffic and get 6 yards. Again, that’s not a knock on McCoy, it’s just the type of runner he is. I think the Eagles would have an easier time replacing what he does compared to the Seahawks replacing what Marshawn Lynch does or the Cowboys replacing what DeMarco Murray does. Backs who can grind it out and can bring a punishing mentality for 25 or more carries are hard to find. More backs can hit gaps, especially in the Eagles’ offense that is built on spacing and stretching the field. But McCoy is a tremendous back and the Bills will play to McCoy’s strengths. And I really think they made a good move trading for Matt Cassel.
Cassel is your classic (for lack of a better term) system player. He needs a strong run game, and obviously that will be the foundation of the Bills’ offense. Cassel has always been a good play-action quarterback. He has never had a problem turning his back to the defense and then getting his head around and figuring out the coverage. In some ways, Cassel is no different – and arguably better at times – than Cincinnati’s Andy Dalton. He fits a system, and that’s what the Bills are going to do.
The Eagles didn’t just get cap space in the trade. I really like linebacker Kiko Alonso, who the Bills will send to Philadelphia. I think he’s a true three-down linebacker. He can play the run and the pass. He’s big, physical, very athletic, can cover in space and he can blitz. So, he can do just about anything you could ask of him. He’s a really good player, even though he’s coming off an ACL surgery. I think the Eagles will have the NFL’s most athletic inside linebacker combination in a 3-4 defense between him and Mychal Kendricks.
The trade has benefits to both sides. We’ll just have to see how it fits into the Eagles’ bigger plans for this offseason
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