Oral History: The MMQB On the Bradford Trade

Howie Roseman. (Jeff Fusco)

To make the deal that will have a seismic impact on a pair of teams’ fates this season, the Eagles and Vikings needed just 48 hours to complete the trade sending Sam Bradford to Minnesota, according to Peter King of the MMQB. King talked to both Howie Roseman and Vikings GM Rick Spielman to reconstruct how the deal went down.

Roseman was so shocked by what Spielman offered that the potential move wasn’t on his mind during the Eagles’ preseason finale Thursday night, King noted in the mini oral history. Spielman first called Roseman on Wednesday evening, but he didn’t offer the Eagles a first-round pick until Friday evening.

Roseman, who said he and Spielman are “pretty close” and that they attended a leadership conference in the spring together, didn’t believe the Vikings would give away their first-round pick. But Pat Shurmur went to bat for Bradford in Minnesota, and Spielman liked Bradford’s play during the second half of the season last year. Spielman also noted how Bradford would play with the best rushing attack he’s had in his career.

Roseman told Spielman on Friday morning the Eagles needed a first-round pick as well as another “high pick,” or their continuing talks would be “useless.” By the end of that day, Spielman caved, and they negotiated the conditional fourth-round pick.

“Hopefully it works out great for the Vikings and great for us. But where it’s such a different scenario for us is it’s so different from the blueprint we established for our season,” Roseman told King. “We’re getting powerful resources back, plus a lot of money in cap space to go out and get good players we didn’t have to help build a really good team.

“I believe our players will rally around our quarterbacks. If Carson [Wentz] plays, experience is a great teacher. Some guys played well right away—the Joe Flaccos, the Ben Roethlisbergers. But Peyton Manning, Troy Aikman, John Elway had their struggles. Eli [Manning] started his rookie year [and went 2-7]. There’s no one way. Whenever you play, you’re going to be learning on the job. But whatever happens, this will be a couple days we all remember when we look back on our careers.”

The whole story is worth a read, check it out here.