Without long-term deal, Bradford is a gamble for the Eagles

IT IS JULY and the NFL sleeps - except for the police blotter stuff, and the anticipation for a ruling about Tom Brady, and the confirmation that NFL teams share north of $7 billion in national media income every year before they sell a ticket or even turn on the lights.

OK, the NFL never really sleeps, even when the entire league is on vacation. And so, it isn't such a surprise that the Eagles have made some news without doing anything.

This is the report: that new quarterback Sam Bradford, he of the ever-healing ACL, is not planning to sign a long-term contract extension before the season begins.

According to Ian Rapoport from NFL Network, "I'm told he plans to play it out this year on the final year of his deal." Whether that means it was his bold decision, or that the Eagles made a lousy offer (so it was an easy decision), or that the Eagles really didn't make any kind of offer (so there was no decision), is a topic for another day. The reasons are less important than the results.

There are two:

1) Bradford will be highly motivated to perform this season at a level that will get him a big new deal when it is over.

2) The Chip Kelly regime, already marked by its predilection for change, will face a season of questions about the future if Bradford excels in the present.

And 2) is going to be bigger than 1). This Eagles season gets more treacherous by the day.

It is fair to say, given all of the roster turnover since Kelly was given personnel control in January, that 2015 already was his Year of Living Dangerously. Well, if this report is accurate, things just got measurably more dangerous.

To trade Nick Foles and a second-rounder for Bradford, coming off of another injury, is bold/risky enough. Running the risk that Bradford has a good and healthy season and then walks when it is over just ratchets up the peril. But that's where the Eagles will be if Rapoport's report is true.

You can look at it and say that this is an ideal situation for the Eagles because it will assure that Bradford gives you everything he has. By that argument, a person, any person, will push that much harder when a financial windfall is in the balance - and that is true, to a degree. But to carry that argument too far is to demean Bradford's professionalism. And if the Eagles had any doubts about that professionalism, they shouldn't have traded for Bradford in the first place.

So the upside here is probably small. NFL players are highly motivated in just about every circumstance. Bradford was going to be highly motivated regardless of the contract situation.

It is the second outcome that is much more worrisome - that is, that Bradford will turn out to be the answer to the Eagles' post-Donovan McNabb quarterback problems, and that he will then see himself out.

We have already seen it happen once, when Jeremy Maclin declined the Eagles' long-term contract offer before last season, essentially placed a bet on himself coming off of an ACL injury, and played very well: 85 catches, 1,318 yards, 10 touchdowns. He played well enough, in fact, to earn a $55 million contract with Kansas City.

The counterargument is that quarterbacks are not wide receivers, and that the Eagles would never allow themselves to be outbid for Bradford if he has a big year for them in 2015. That assumes, of course, that Bradford likes playing here, and that he would give them the chance to beat any offer on the table. That's a fair bit of assuming.

Then there are the questions. Kelly will swat them away without sweating. As for Bradford and his teammates, we'll see. The media nourishes itself on a carrion of uncertainty, and there are few sports uncertainties bigger than those involving NFL quarterbacks. This will be a media issue all year, with all of the attendant noise.

Then there are his teammates. It's hard to know what they're thinking. You trade away Foles and a draft pick for a guy who a) you aren't willing/able to sign long-term and, b) you have said will be involved in an open competition with Mark Sanchez for the starting job. Some players will be too self-absorbed to notice. Others will respect it. Others will wonder, though - and wondering about the organizational commitment to the quarterback, wondering for a team trying to get someplace, creates another layer of uncertainty.

Layer upon layer, then, in the Year of Living Dangerously.