A QB's great expectations

AS EAGLES fans count down the months, weeks and now days until the Aug. 2 start of training camp, they are eager to know exactly what to make of Chip Kelly's turbulent, transformative offseason.

No one has sensed this eagerness more acutely than your intrepid beat writer, who almost daily has fielded questions - walking into the dry cleaner, buying mulch at the hardware store or sitting on the exam table at the doctor's office. ("Turn your head, cough, and explain the LeSean McCoy trade, please.")

Most fans don't zero in on a single facet of Kelly's rebuild; their question about the 2015 Eagles is comprehensive: "Are they going to be good?"

While changing at least nine 2014 starters, jettisoning older, proven performers, Kelly has given off a strong whiff of "rebuilding" - indicating he felt he'd gone as far as he could with the core group he inherited in 2013, despite having won 20 games in two seasons.

"Ten and six, not going to the playoffs, is just like 4-12," Kelly said in a sitdown with reporters near the end of the Birds' spring work.

Asked if he would have made so many changes had he thought the Eagles were close at the end of 2014, Kelly, who took full control of personnel from Howie Roseman in January, said he would not have.

"I didn't feel we were close at the end of the year," he said.

Does this mean the Eagles are pointing toward true Super Bowl contention at least a few years down the road, or does Kelly think he can slap it all together and win this year? With his "win the day" credo, Kelly isn't about to hint at anything like the long view the city's other three major pro teams are selling right now.

In an attempt not to get ensnared in long conversations while I'm trying to do something else, I've boiled my response down to this: "If Sam Bradford is healthy and sharp, I think they'll be a real good team."

There are other relevant factors, but that really is the essence. And it will define the answer to the larger question - are we looking at a contender in 2015, or are we in the early stages of a project, one that will enter the next offseason still in search of a franchise quarterback? Fiddle with the secondary all you want, the star QB remains the one crucial ingredient every Super Bowl winner has possessed for more than a decade.

We left minicamp last month without having gained a clear picture of what Bradford can do, without even knowing for sure that he will begin the season as the starter. Bradford was limited to seven-on-seven work during the spring, and Kelly, perhaps in an attempt to lighten the scrutiny as Bradford recovers from back-to-back ACL repairs, has emphasized that Bradford, while making $13 million, will compete for the starting job with returnee Mark Sanchez, who will make about $4.5 million.

When we last saw Bradford, he was calling Aug. 2 "an important date" and hoping he would be ready to practice 11-on-11 from the onset of camp, as he learns a new offense. Does that mean he starts the Aug. 16 preseason opener against the Colts? Can we assume Bradford's improvement will follow a straight line, that he will be fully ready for the season opener, Sept. 14 in Atlanta? What are the chances he stays healthy for 16 games and the hoped-for postseason? How rusty will he be, having not thrown a regular-season pass since the middle of the 2013 season? Physically and emotionally, is Bradford still the same guy the Rams drafted first overall in 2010?

When Kelly sat down with reporters, his take on Bradford was an extension of what he'd said previously - that in order to obtain a franchise-QB-level talent, he had to gamble on Bradford getting and staying healthy.

Kelly declined to describe the process that led to the March trade of Nick Foles to the Rams for Bradford, but he said: "We looked at everything, and we knew we weren't going to pick No. 1 or No. 2. So, and I've said it before, if you're not going to pick 1 or 2, how do you go get a quarterback? Peyton Manning switched teams because of an injury. Drew Brees switched teams because of an injury, so we went down that path."

Asked if this is his biggest NFL coaching challenge - coming up with a franchise QB without ever being in position to draft one - Kelly didn't deny it. He didn't really want to discuss it, though.

"That's what we're trying to do," Kelly said.

Asked a follow-up question, Kelly said: "I think, in this league, getting someone who can throw it [is crucial]. You'd better have repetitive accuracy, you'd better have someone who can win a game throwing the football. And that's what we're looking for."

Has Bradford's skill set eroded through years of punishment absorbed in service of a hapless Rams team?

"Not what I've seen, watching him throw out there, not at all," Kelly said.

Of course, like us, Kelly has not seen Bradford under pressure, being pursued by tacklers, having to make decisions on the fly. We won't know anything about that until he plays in games.

"That's happened," Kelly acknowledged, when asked about quarterbacks who haven't been as confident in the pocket after suffering serious injury. "But I've also seen quarterbacks like Drew Brees come back with 25 staples in his shoulder, and everybody said he would never play again."

Brees became a free agent in 2006 after suffering a severe shoulder injury in the Chargers' 2005 season finale. He signed with the Saints and has been one of the NFL's top QBs ever since. Brees thought he was headed to Miami from San Diego, he has said, but the Nick Saban Dolphins cooled after their doctors gave him a 25 percent chance of playing again. They signed Daunte Culpepper, who was coming off a serious knee injury. Culpepper played in four Dolphins games.

"Ask the Miami Dolphins what the history of their franchise would be like if their doctors didn't fail [Brees] on the medical," Kelly said. "You don't know. Maybe Nick Saban is still coaching in the NFL. You don't know. But that's a risk we were willing to take. You know it's a risk, but it was a risk we were willing to take."

It was an interesting example for Kelly to bring up, since observers who see him returning to the college game someday often cite Saban - a top-level football mind, who grew frustrated over not being able to obtain the QB who would have made his NFL team a contender. Saban fled to Alabama after two NFL seasons, so Kelly already has outlasted him. But how much longer will the pro game engage Kelly, if he can't get that QB?

Again and again in his session with reporters, Kelly returned to his contention that most quarterbacks get injured, implying the risk with Bradford isn't unusual or unique.

"Everybody gets hurt in this game," Kelly said. "I don't know any quarterback who hasn't missed time, right now. Tom Brady missed a year. Peyton Manning missed a year, Drew Brees has missed time, Nick Foles missed half a season; I mean, Aaron Rodgers has been hurt. I don't know if there's any quarterback in the league that hasn't been hurt. And if you haven't, you're probably young. That's the deal.

"But our research, in terms of dealing with guys with two ACLs, there's a 10-to-12 percent chance of reinjury. So that's an 88-to-90 percent chance that they're going to be successful."

There is indeed a very good chance Bradford's left knee will hold up, especially since he says he has suffered no loss of cartilage in the back-to-back tears. But Kelly's attempt to lump Bradford in with top QBs who have suffered injury doesn't quite track.

Brady missed the final 15 games of the 2008 season after suffering an ACL tear. But he has not missed another game in his other 14 years as a starting quarterback, after taking over for injured Drew Bledsoe early in the 2001 season. Currently he's working on a streak of 96 regular-season starts in a row.

Manning sat out the 2011 season with a neck injury, causing the Colts to move on to Andrew Luck, after finishing last overall. But Manning has started 256 of a possible 256 games over the rest of his career.

Brees' shoulder injury caused him to change teams, but he didn't miss any games because of it. In nine seasons with the Saints, Brees has missed one game.

The nine games Rodgers missed in 2013, and one each in 2010 (concussion) and 2011 (rested by 14-1 Packers in regular-season finale), are the only games he has missed in seven years as a starter.

Bradford, meanwhile, has missed 31 of a possible 80 games in five NFL seasons. There is no elite QB with a similar profile.

"We'd like to get a quarterback in here that we can hang our hat on and build the rest of the team around," Kelly said.

Does he feel confident he has that guy - in Bradford or perhaps even in Sanchez?

"We'll see," Kelly said.

That might be the franchise slogan for 2015.