We already knew many of the details of The Sam Bradford Trade after reading Peter King’s oral history, but the way Howie Roseman described his dominance of Rick Spielman to Anthony Gargano and friends on 97.5 this morning is downright incredible. From Tim McManus:

In need of some family time, talks resumed on Thursday. Given that the Philadelphia Eagles were just eight days out from their regular-season opener against the Cleveland Browns, and the Vikings were inquiring about their starting quarterback, Roseman decided to cut to the chase.

“For us to do that, it would change the NFC North, it would change the NFC East, it would change the NFC as a whole. It puts our coaches in a really tough position. That’s going to be a situation that’s gotta be a no-brainer for our team. And I said, so what does that mean? I said, well, the Carson Palmer trade was like that and it was a one and a two,” Roseman recalled. “And [Spielman] was just taken aback. And he said, ‘Well, that doesn’t make any sense.’ And I said, ‘No, it does.'”

The trade Roseman referenced came in October 2011 when the Cincinnati Bengals sent an unhappy and “retired” Palmer to the Oakland Raiders for a first-round pick in 2012 and a second-round pick in 2013.

No, it does. Uh, I’m pretty sure that’s what Rey did to that stormtrooper when she was captured on Starkiller Base. That’s The Force… or at least The Schwartz, Roseman used. Wise, he is.

On our podcast earlier this year, John Barchard tried to convince me that Bradford – and his flirtation with a holdout or even retirement – was similar to Carson Palmer. I said that was ridiculous, because Palmer had a much longer track record when he pulled a stunt to get out of Cincinnati, and that there was no comparison between the two. And yet, here we are, Howie Roseman used Palmer, unironically, to swipe a first round pick from Spielman.