It seems that the Sam Bradford era is finally coming to an end with the Eagles. It was reported Saturday morning that the Eagles are sending their quarterback to the Minnesota Vikings for a first round pick in 2017 and a conditional 4th round in 2018. Later on, ESPN’s Adam Schefter explained the conditional pick if the Vikings make to the NFC Championship game this season then it becomes a 3rd round pick and becomes a 2nd round pick if the Vikings win the Super Bowl. There is now a good feeling that the Eagles are going to go with Wentz as their starter over Chase Daniels probably. If this does happen, they would be the 2nd NFC East team to start the 2016 season with a rookie as the other team is the Dallas Cowboys with Dak Prescott.
Whenever trades happen, you always hear experts within the sport where the trade happens who talk about the long term and short effects on the trade in regards to the team. I want to take a different approach and look at the short and long term effects on both the NFC East and the NFC North. Let us first look at the short term effect on the NFC East. What I am going to say may be seen as a bit odd, but in the short term aspect, this trade makes the NFC East now a two-team race between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. I know there are a lot of people who are very high on Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys and I am not. Dak is still an unproven talent; I don’t think he will be terrible this season. I just don’t think he is the right person right now to lead the Cowboys to win the NFC East.
I am aware that he is surrounded by a slew of talent with Jason Witten, Dez Bryant, and the front seven. But they can only do as much as they can and at least for the first ten weeks, it’s still on Dak Prescott to do the job. There were not the biggest expectations for the Eagles this season because they have a new head coach this season in Doug Pederson. Now throw in the fact that you have a rookie quarterback that is more than likely starting with Carson Wentz, who is coming off a rib injury and has had limited time with the starters. I think the long term effect on the NFC East is nothing would surprise me if down the road if the Eagles or Cowboys ended up winning the division several times after Prescott and whoever is starting for the Eagles has a few years under their belt.
On the other side, the short-term effect for the Minnesota Vikings is that if Sam Bradford can stay healthy, he is a proven quarterback. Since Sam Bradford came into the NFL back in 2010, he has only played two full seasons in 2010 and 2012. The other years he had some injury that has sidelined him for several weeks at some points.
Unfortunately, Teddy Bridgewater will never return to 100%, so if you are the Vikings, you may need to figure out your next plan of attack. Sam Bradford is 28 years old and due to a number of injuries he has had who knows how much longer he can play. Unlike the Eagles, who have Carson Wentz, who will lead them into the future, the Vikings don’t have someone who can lead them in the future.
So the long term effect may be more of a gloomy situation in Minnesota than in Philadelphia. The NFC North for the short term effect I don’t think gets affected as badly because I don’t expect major things from Chicago or Detroit. It’s the long term effect of this trade that will hurt the Vikings much more than the Eagles.
Overall, I would say the Vikings won the short term aspect of the trade as they got someone who is a proven quarterback, but the Eagles won the long term picture of this because with the two draft picks they got from the Vikings, they can start building around Carson Wentz or whoever is starting for them.