kempski

With word breaking that Sam Bradford isn’t going to play in Sunday’s pre-season opener, two schools of thought have popped up on Twitter. The first is the no harm no foul idea: That sitting Bradford for whatever reason isn’t a big deal. He’s probably healthy and maybe just not ready to face a pass rush. Either way, it’s fine, because it’s a long season and it’s only the first game in which he’d probably only play a quarter anyway.

The other thought is that it’s because Bradford is definitely not healthy, and that’s a bigger concern. Jimmy Kempski is of the latter school, saying on Twitter that there’s no way Bradford is “100%” in emoji form. In his post for Philly Voice, Kempski expounded on this:

In the past, the projected starting quarterback has played the first preseason game under Chip Kelly. Furthermore, when you have a new quarterback in your offense, you typically want to see him in game action as soon as possible. It’s not much of a leap to come to the conclusion that the Eagles have some level of worry about Bradford’s readiness to play in live game action.

Kelly did commit to Bradford playing against the Ravens in the second preseason game on August 22nd, which will give Bradford more time to be ready to play. We’ll see.

Kempski points to an earlier post that said Bradford “has barely moved during training camp.” Eliot Shorr-Parks said that Bradford, to him, has looked 100% even when he’s running. Bradford himself said it has “nothing to do with the knee,” and it was probably Chip’s plan “from the beginning.” We’re likely not going to know what the whole deal is until we’re getting ready for pre-season week two. It’s not something that’s on Chip’s mind – as obvious by this decision – but it doesn’t inspire any kind of confidence.