The way Chip Kelly told it _ and who could ever doubt his honesty? _ the Eagles never made a serious offer to move up in the 2015 draft and grab Marcus Mariota, the prototypical quarterback for his zone-read offense and the guy Kelly called the most talented player he ever coached at Oregon. Nope, never happened.
"It was just a steep price. It's like driving into a nice neighborhood and looking at a house and saying, 'That's really nice,' and then they tell you the price and you turn around and drive away," Kelly said. "We didn't walk in the front door. We didn't take a look around."
The reporting at the time didn't back up his assertion, but the actual truth of the matter is probably lost to time. There was plenty of indication that Kelly did drive up to the house, and he tried to jimmy every window in the place and hoist himself through. If he learned nothing about coaching in the NFL during his first two seasons with the Eagles, Kelly had learned that without an elite-level quarterback winning consistently is impossible.
That is also the unsurprising conclusion that Howie Roseman reached during his one-year sabbatical from power, and the motivation for his bold moves in the following draft that allowed the team to move up and select Carson Wentz for new coach Doug Pederson.
Taken together, those two drafts _ the move the Eagles were unable to make in 2015, and the one that succeeded in 2016 _ form a remarkable fulcrum for the franchise. What would be different today if the Tennessee Titans had been willing to listen to Kelly's offer, or if the Cleveland Browns had been unwilling to listen to Roseman's?
The history of those drafts collides Sunday afternoon in Nashville, when the Eagles play the Tennessee Titans and Wentz and Mariota face off for the first time. Wentz will be starting just his second game since a season-ending knee injury in December, and Mariota is still coming back from an elbow injury in the opener that has affected his ability to grip the football. Nevertheless, what-is and what-might-have-been for the two franchises will be on display, and that goes for the players themselves, too.
"I honestly didn't know all those logistics and all those things," Wentz said, "but I can tell you I'm extremely thankful I'm here."
