With Kelly Gone, Bradford’s Future A Bit Cloudier

Sam Bradford said that owner Jeffrey Lurie did not ask for his feedback prior to making a coaching move, and was caught off guard when the news came down Tuesday night that Chip Kelly had been relieved of his duties.

“I would just say the surprise factor,” Bradford responded when asked what made this different than previous experiences. “I thought we had a really good practice yesterday, [Kelly] broke us down after practice, everything was normal. For it to happen last night, it just kind of surprised everyone.”

Bradford said that he will be “forever grateful” that Kelly took a chance on him coming off two major injuries, and said that he had a “great relationship” with his ex-head coach.

Do you think he lost the locker room?

“I don’t,” Bradford responded. “He didn’t lose me, I know that.”

The future for Bradford is a bit cloudier than it would have been if Kelly was retained. Kelly made it very clear that he intended on bringing Bradford back, and the QB (eventually) made it known that he wanted to return.

Does he still feel that way?

“I mean, yeah. I still enjoy the guys on this team, I enjoy the city, I’ve enjoyed my time here. Obviously, I think a lot of it depends on who they hire as a head coach now and what type of offensive system he wants to run,” said Bradford.

That will be a key piece to all this: how the head coach feels about Bradford and vice versa. With the quarterback scheduled to become a free agent, there is a level of flexibility on both sides (barring the Eagles using the franchise tag, that is).

Either way, the chances are pretty good that Bradford will once again have to learn a new offense.

“Obviously I would love to be in the same system. It’s only happened once in my career. But at this point whether I’m here or somewhere else, I’m going to be learning a new system, so that’s just part of it.”