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By Rob Tornoe

 

Changes

This trade, though it may have shocked you initially, makes a lot of sense. For too long, our local teams (looking at you, Phillies and Flyers) have operated with sentimentality, bias and tunnel vision toward their own or known (typically expensive) name players. It’s why Ryan Howard is still a Phillie. It’s why Andy Reid couldn’t get out of his own way. It’s why the entire Flyers organization exists. Trading McCoy is shocking to us because it’s the sort of move that would’ve been unfathomable for any of our teams just five years ago.

But things have changed. The Sixers flip players like they’re a 1994 middle school kid trying to leverage his Fleer Ultra duplicates for Pog slammers. Ron Hextall just traded two warm-bodied defensemen for draft picks in a year where the Flyers have a chance of making the playoffs. Ruben Amaro bought a computer. And over the last few days, Chip Kelly has taken a torch to his Eagles and cut loose, in one way or another, Todd Herremans, Cary Williams, Trent Cole and LeSean McCoy (probably with more to come). The times, they are a-changin’, and this sort of pragmatic thinking might push some local elder scriptuals and pundits, who view this sort of executive irreverence as a sin, over the edge. But I, for one, welcome it.

 

Progressive thinking

Though more has been made about Kelly’s use of sports science and unconventional wizardry than his embracing of traditional analytics, there’s no doubt that his progressive philosophy is a sibling to the sorts of advanced statistics-based models pioneered by the A’s and Rays (in baseball) and the Rockets and Sixers (in basketball). One of tenants of that mindset is finding value in the market– measuring an expensive star’s worth against a cheaper, perhaps more impactful alternative. So to that end, we really can’t judge the McCoy traded until we see A) Kiko Alonso play (anyone short of Oregon and Chip Kelly guru Mark Saltveit who claims they are familiar with his game is lying to you) and B) what the Eagles do with the cap space they just freed up–McCoy’s cap hit next season would’ve been around ~$11 million, Alonso’s is ~$1 million.

No one will argue that, presently, Alonso is a better player than McCoy. But the Eagles are going to get a lot more for McCoy and his cap hit than just Alonso. And there’s also an argument to be made that a good linebacker is harder to come by and therefore more valuable than a good running back. In fact, this move, in the words of the great Jony Ive, almost feels inevitable. It just makes so. much. damn. sense.

 

Running backs

They hit walls. Hard. Here’s an ESPN chart showing the precipitous decline of running back performance after the age of 27:

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Now, you might argue that McCoy will be 27 next season and that maybe the Eagles should’ve kept him around. Fair point. But the chart includes players with a minimum of 75 attempts per season (a relatively light workload). McCoy’s is much higher (over 200 attempts per from 2010-2012, and over 300 attempts per the last two seasons). He’s hardly an overworked back, but you can argue that given his comparatively heavier workload, he skews further to the left on this chart and is probably just now at his peak– the fine line between experience and declining athleticism. And though his “struggles” at the beginning of last season were due in part to a patchwork offensive line, it’s hard to argue that McCoy didn’t take a step backward last year. His YPC declined from 5.1 in 2013 to 4.2 last season, he rushed for 300 fewer yards, scored less touchdowns and fumbled more. Beyond that, the eye test certainly told you that he lost a step. Sure, he strung together a few great games toward the end of the season, but it was clear that he wasn’t quite the same player. I think he’s about to hit his wall.

Additionally, running backs might be the most easily replaceable players in sports. Anyone who’s ever played fantasy football, which I assume is most of you, knows that the list of top backs during the draft looks a lot different from the list of top backs at the end of the season. Guys come out of nowhere. There’s probably not a position in all of sports that is based on athleticism as much as running back. It’s a young man’s game, and a borderline commodity position. It’ll be much easier for the Eagles, a team with gaping defensive holes, to find a good running back than it would’ve been to find a good linebacker.

 

Kiko

All of this is predicated on Kiko being an at least above average player. That’s a huge question mark. But here’s what we know about him: He was a second round draft pick and PFWA defensive rookie of the year in 2013. Saltveit, who follows Oregon and the Eagles, making him the chairman of what’s become a beautiful one-person cottage industry, wrote the following about Kiko for Bleeding Green Nation:

On the field, Kiko’s motor ran all the way up into the red part of the dial.  A month into practice, the Bills had to give him some days off after their sports-science monitors showed he was running too hard,  He had four interceptions in his first four games, and ended up as the defensive rookie of the year (according to the Professional Football Writers of America) with 159 tackles on the year — more than he had in all his years at Oregon combined.

His explosion onto the scene was so dramatic that he earned his own hashtag #legendofkikoalonso for a series of mythical, Chuck Norris-like exploits. (“He intercepted the same pass twice!”)

Sold. And the Buffalo bloggers love him:

As good as Brown was defending the pass as a rookie, and even considering how athletic Bradham is, Alonso is still the Bills’ best coverage linebacker by a country mile. In fact, he has the potential to be one of the best coverage linebackers in the entire NFL for a long time. It is exceedingly difficult to justify trading that type of player in a division featuring Tom Brady.

Much remains to be seen, but if Kiko is as good as advertised, this will prove to be a great trade.

 

Oregon bias

One thing you may have been asking yourself reading that first paragraph about bias in sports: What about Chip’s Oregon bias? I thought you’d never ask! This, to me, is the most concerning part of his unchecked power. On one hand, he knows these guys as well as anyone– both their strengths and their weaknesses. On the other, his comfort level with known, perhaps perfectly capable players may be clouding his view of unknown, but potentially more skilled alternatives. In college you can get away with – and thrive on – building a program around certain types of players that fit into your #culture. But in the NFL, where things are so evenly matched, you need every advantage you can get, whether it comes from heart rate monitors and smoothies or slight edges in key matchups. Culture, though it may win football, might not always be the sole determinant of success in the NFL. Kiko could be great (ditto for Mariota, maybe), but eventually Chip’s familiarity with former Oregon players will run out and he’ll have to start evaluating players the same way as everybody else. Let’s cross our fingers that the Oregon bias doesn’t prove to be one of the most reckless strategies in Philly sports history.

 

Conclusion

Concerns about Chip’s tunnel vision aside, this is a bold but obvious move. The Eagles sold high on McCoy, got a young player with huge upside at position in which they’re sorely lacking, and freed up a ton of cap space. Heart you, Chip, but you look goddamn ridiculous in a suit:

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Photo of Inquirer cartoonist Rob Tornoe’s shirt, available for sale now, which is so good that I’m mad I didn’t think of it first