Can Bradford take the heat in Philadelphia?

On Oct. 29, 2008, the Oklahoma City Thunder played its first home game - its first game, period - as an NBA franchise. Three days later, Sam Bradford proved the prairie still belonged to him. He threw five touchdown passes for Oklahoma in a 62-28 victory over Nebraska. It was the ninth game of his redshirt sophomore season, when he won the Heisman Trophy.

"Oklahoma football was pretty much the biggest deal in that state," he said Thursday. "You couldn't go anywhere without someone coming up to you and saying something or talking about last week's game."

Those heady days from Bradford's college career represent the closest approximation to what he is only beginning to experience now: the pressure intrinsic to being the Eagles' starting quarterback, and the blowback that accompanies a series of subpar performances. He was practically a demigod in Norman, throwing 50 touchdowns in that enchanted 2008 season, and over his five years in St. Louis with the Rams, he never knew what it was like to play in a city that put pro football first.

"Since I've been here, I've learned that this is a great sports town. The people are passionate here. They really care," Bradford said. "As far as the external pressure, though, I think I put more pressure on myself than anyone on the outside could put on me. I don't really go out a lot. It's pretty much from here to home and back here the next day. I don't really have a great sense for what's going on out in that world, but there's no doubt it's a great fan base, and they're very passionate here."

Passionate is such a pleasant euphemism for the dynamic at work here. The Rams are second-best in a Midwestern town's sports hierarchy. St. Louis is baseball heaven. People there live for the Cardinals. People here die with the Eagles. It's a guttural connection, and if Bradford continues to play like he has lately, he'll understand the difference soon enough. He has thrown five interceptions over his last two games, and only the fact that the Eagles won both games - victories keyed by a pair of excellent showings by their defense - has kept the team's quarterback situation from bubbling over into a full-fledged controversy.

Still, it's simmering - on talk-radio, in columns such as this, in the watercooler conversation on Monday and Tuesday mornings. In one sense, having this discussion at all is strange. The Eagles are 3-3, in first place in the NFC East, and there's still an argument that Bradford, after missing most of the last two years to that torn left ACL, should be given a grace period to acclimate himself fully to Chip Kelly's offense.

In another sense, though, the discussion is natural, even necessary, because it's possible that, in another month, Bradford will be the same quarterback he is now: indecisive, underthrowing too many receivers, a tick late on too many passes. If he is, the calls to start Mark Sanchez will increase in frequency, and no matter how hard Bradford tries to tune out the noise, it will be difficult for him to earmuff it away.

"I don't think there's anything that anyone says that will affect him or how he plays or how he comes to work every day," said running back DeMarco Murray, who roomed with Bradford at Oklahoma. "You've got to be mentally strong to play in this league. That's why a lot of guys are here at this level, because they have the mental toughness. I don't think that's affecting anyone."

Amid the idyll of playing in a perennial powerhouse college program that Bradford led to the national championship game, Murray is probably right. But this market and others like it - New York, Boston - are something altogether different. Ask Ron Jaworski and Donovan McNabb if they were able to drown out the distractions created within a city consumed by the fortunes of its NFL franchise. Better yet, ask them if everyone around them - their coaches, their teammates, the other people in the organization - drowned out the noise, too.

"Once you're playing, you don't think about that," said Sanchez, the New York Jets' starting quarterback for four years. "It's more, I would say, during the week. You know if it comes up in a meeting - maybe not directly, like 'A reporter said this,' but like, 'Hey, guys, we've got to address this issue.' And sometimes it's like, 'Did we see that on the film, or did we hear that somewhere else?' "

Bradford insisted Thursday that he doesn't hear any of it, that he wears out the road between the NovaCare Complex and his home and doesn't expose himself to any external criticism. He might actually be able to keep up that monkish existence for a little while: The Eagles have two road games, against the Panthers and the Cowboys, and their bye over the next three weeks, so Bradford won't play at Lincoln Financial Field again until Nov. 15, against the Dolphins.

He has until then to straighten himself out, if he can. If he can't, he won't be able to go anywhere without someone saying something about his previous game. And he won't want to.

msielski@phillynews.com

@MikeSielski