The Eagles' Marcus Mariota moment of truth

TONIGHT, CLOSURE.

Live from Chicago's Auditorium Theatre, shortly after 8 p.m. EDT, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will call the name of Marcus Mariota, either on behalf of the Eagles or some other team. When that blessed moment finally arrives, we can quit speculating on what the Birds might be willing to give to obtain him, or whether he possibly could slide past this or that quarterback-needy team and make the price more palatable.

This time tomorrow, sports talk radio and social media will either be in a Mariota-fueled frenzy, with local outlets frantically dispatching reporters to Hawaii (Oh, gosh, such short notice, you're really asking a lot, but I guess I'll take one for the team . . . ), or we will finally be talking seriously about Sam Bradford as the future of the Eagles.

We will know what to look for from the 2015 Birds. They either will be starting over with a rookie quarterback and a trade-depleted roster, or they will have strengthened their weaknesses and be shooting for the Super Bowl right away, assuming a healthy Bradford.

The most likely scenario is moving ahead with Bradford, which could produce a bit of a post-Mariota hangover in the fan base, especially if instead of trading up for Mariota, the Eagles trade back to pick up more than their current eight picks. They are scheduled to draft 20th overall - just in case you hadn't heard - and that is right around the annual line of demarcation that traditionally separates what teams think are legit first-round prospects from guys who are really second-rounders. That, plus what player-personnel vice president Ed Marynowitz said last week about hoping to add picks, could equal no Eagles selection tonight whatsoever. Which would be unpopular in the short term, one might surmise.

If they moved down, tomorrow they might, say, get an offensive lineman somewhere in the 30s or 40s and then a safety with their original second-round pick, 52nd overall. Or vice versa. Or a wide receiver in either spot. They need starting-quality players in all those areas.

A trade down seems more likely than a trade up. This is Chip Kelly's first draft in full control of the process, so we really don't know how he will approach it. We do know, though, that Kelly patterns a lot of what he does after Bill Belichick. And Belichick is the king of trading down.

A story on Grantland.com a few months back explained this very well, and one passage from author Bill Barnwell stuck with me: " . . . where he succeeds more than most is in sticking to a game plan and avoiding making the desperate decisions that other teams do. Belichick doesn't treat the Patriots like they're one player away. He doesn't overreact to a perceived weakness, like New England's lack of a downfield receiver, by throwing a high draft pick at a talent who doesn't deserve the recognition. And he doesn't sacrifice future picks to satisfy present needs."

Belichick likes extra picks, as the Eagles did during the Andy Reid-Joe Banner years, because the more picks you have, the better chance you have of coming up with, say, Trent Cole in the fifth round in 2005. Of course, you can amass extra picks and still draft poorly, something the Eagles managed in 2011, when they made 11 selections, with only sixth-round center Jason Kelce becoming a long-term starter.

The Birds came away with only seven picks last year, and available evidence suggests they blew the first one on unpolished outside linebacker Marcus Smith. They tried to plug a bunch of holes this offseason through free agency, but that is not a winning strategy long-term. (And certainly is not a Belichickian strategy.) They need to do well in this draft. They need more than Chip's presumed dream QB in this draft.

"We want to get a lot more good players in here, we want to develop those players and eventually we are not going to really be, hopefully, big guys in free agency," Kelly said last month. "We want to develop them from the bottom up and have our players on this thing, so we're not going out there in free agency and having to bring six, seven, eight, nine guys in here. That's philosophically the way we're going to approach things."

Marynowitz said that the strength of this draft was "especially in the mid-rounds or solid starter categories, as we'd call them." So, you'd want to maximize your picks in that area.

Maybe wanting to add picks was what was behind yesterday's report from CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora, that inside linebacker Mychal Kendricks is available for a second-rounder.

Kendricks, probably the Birds' second-best defensive player last season behind Fletcher Cox, has not attended OTAs thus far. Initially, he was said to have a conflict with a long-planned trip to Costa Rica. Now he is in California, helping his brother Eric prepare for the draft and dealing with an ill father. (Kellyesque scenario: Eagles trade Kendricks for a second-round pick, use it to draft his brother.) In any event, a source close to the situation said Kendricks will be in Philadelphia again soon, and presumably will be part of the next phase of workouts, assuming he still works here.

Of course, it isn't impossible the team could trade up in the first round, even if it can't get to Mariota. Marynowitz said last week that in this draft, he sees "eight to 10 players I believe are true difference-maker types." Maybe the Eagles think they need one of those guys - Michigan State cornerback Trae Waynes, or West Virginia wide receiver Kevin White, for instance. Either would be less expensive than Mariota. What if you think Central Florida wideout Breshad Perriman is one of those eight to 10 guys, and you think you might just need to trade up from 20 to, say, 17 to get him? What would that cost?

Marynowitz seemed confident last week that Kelly will heed his advice, and he said he thinks the most important relationship in the building is the one between the head coach and the personnel director. Marynowitz also said that last week, they were "still in the planning phases" of how the room will function during the draft, who gets on the phone with other teams, and so on. Basically, we really don't know how a Kelly-led draft process will work.

But we are about to find out.

On Twitter: @LesBowen

Blog: ph.ly/Eagletarian