Who does Bradford think he is?

bradford

Sam Bradford wants out of Philadelphia. This news came just days after Howie Roseman announced the Eagles would be drafting a quarterback with their newly acquired second overall pick.

Bradford’s agent, Tom Condon, said Monday on Sirius radio that Bradford “doesn’t want to be there [in Philadelphia] holding a place card”.

Hard to imagine why Bradford saw himself as a long term option at quarterback for the Eagles considering the team only signed him to a two-year contract. The Eagles have said that Bradford is still their starting quarterback and that they plan to sit whichever rookie they draft for the year. Bradford however, still decided to ask the Eagles to move him.

Which begs one question. Who does Sam Bradford think he is? The former Oklahoma star has had a very underwhelming NFL career, and should consider himself lucky that he is still on a roster let alone a starter in the league. In the long history of the NFL there has been many players to be considered a first round bust. The disgruntled Eagles’ quarterback is certainly right at the top of that list. In his 6-year career Bradford has a total of zero winning seasons, zero playoff appearances, and has a dismal 60.1 completion percentage. In addition to his less than impressive resume, he has only managed to play in 2 full seasons due to injuries. The injuries alone are reason enough to not believe in Bradford. If the starting quarterback of your team has shown he can’t stay healthy, then how can you be expected to invest in him long term?  The most impressive part of Bradford’s career is the amount of money he has been paid for being such a bad player. To be exact Bradford has been paid just over $80million since his rookie year. He has clearly been paid like an elite quarterback, but hasn’t played anything of the sort.

There has been a long list of excuses afforded to Bradford for how his career has turned out to this point. We have heard he’s played on bad teams, he’s experienced too many coaching changes, or he’s played behind bad offensive lines. Those excuses have long been over used, and it has come time for everyone, including Bradford, to realize he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a successful NFL quarterback.

“Sam’s a competitor and he wants to go someplace that he’s the man.” Said Condon in defense of his client.

How can any team take Bradford serious as a competitor when he ran away from competition here in Philadelphia? Rather than Bradford seeing this as an opportunity to finally live up to the potential we keep hearing he has, he decided to hide behind his agent and cry. Bradford has been handed the starting job most likely since high school, and has now cowered away rather than fight for the starting job. How Bradford thinks he is going to walk into the Eagles locker room or the locker room of any other NFL team and have respect from his teammates is astonishing. Especially after saying that he wouldn’t attend the Eagles voluntary team work outs. While the rest of his team is working hard to learn a new system, Bradford will instead be elsewhere not getting in much needed work and learning. By not showing up to workouts it shows the rest of the team that he is a selfish player and not interested in trying to improve the team’s record from a year ago. The starting quarterback of an NFL team is supposed to be fearless and undeterred in the face of adversity. Bradford however has not showed he possesses either of those attributes. If he hasn’t already lost the respect of his team, I would be very surprised.

By trying to run away because an unexperienced rookie is going to be brought in Bradford shows he has no confidence in his game. So if Sam has no confidence in himself, why should his team have any in him?

 

 

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