Chip Kelly Should Bet His Eagles Life on Colin Kaepernick this Offseason

The Eagles have lost two in a row. It’s the time of year where a bunch of high profile college jobs are open, or could be. Given that combination, it wouldn’t take much clairvoyance to predict that the world is chirping for Chip Kelly to “mutually part ways” to USC or Miami. Or what about LSU? Or Texas. One game out of the NFC East lead, the Eagles are getting left for dead.

They’ve played poorly enough this season that there’s not unfounded reason to believe this is who they are now. There’s also a non-zero chance he does take a college job. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility, even if this year continues to go to hell, that Chip and the Eagles brass get together and decided to give it one more go. If Colin Kaepernick could be had for a late round pick, he would be a worthwhile gamble for Chip. Here’s why:

1) Chip already lost his gamble on Sam Bradford. Luckily for the Eagles, the quarterback opted to bet on himself when he was tearing it up in the preseason, and now the team can cut its losses. Granting that Nick Foles has not been some sort of maestro in St. Louis, the Eagles erred in paying more for Bradford and giving up an extra pick, but that’s water under the bridge now. There are myriad ways you can second-guess Chip the roster builder this year. This has been well documented, but the idea the situation is completely unsalvageable in the long run is still premature.

2) Since the start of last season, Colin Kaepernick has been bad, and his struggles on the field affected his head (or, depending on your perceptions, the other way around). There’s no dressing that up. Nevertheless, there’s been organizational chaos all around him in that period, and it’s a team sport where Kaepernick has not been given the best opportunity to succeed. Here’s what Tim Kawakami wrote over the weekend about the curious timing of Kaepernick’s surgery and IR trip:

"I would imagine the 49ers suggested that now was the time to get the surgery–all the better to get him healthy by April 1, which is the deadline for the 49ers to release him before his 2016 salary is guaranteed. (My understanding is that if Kaepernick is deemed healthy by then, his 2016 salary would not be guaranteed until or unless he is on the roster April 1. He won’t be on the roster–the 49ers will release him… or trade him if they possibly can, which I doubt.) And I would imagine Kaepernick said fine, let’s end it now, do the surgery and I’ll be fine to work out for my new suitors in April. Hey: “Mutual parting” … anybody? And by “mutual,” I mean: The 49ers and Kaepernick both know the 49ers want him out and he might be saying, yep, see ya."

3) Kawakami didn’t think there would be a trade suitor for Kaepernick, given his $21.2 million cap hit next season. If the 49ers do want to jettison him, this is a high price for a recipient to pay, in addition to giving up a (presumably late-round) pick. But, it would also ensure that whoever is getting Kaepernick doesn’t have to compete with other quarterback-needy teams, of which there are always many, on a multi-year deal.

Now, there are a number of hypotheticals and unknowns about how this would all go down. Maybe they agree to overpay Kaepernick for a year and hope that Chip Kelly could somehow resuscitate the 2011 or 2012 version of him, who at that point looked like he was going to totally transform the quarterback position, the price tag would be a bargain.

Another possibility is holding out hope for the 49ers to cut Kaepernick, and then the Eagles could give the quarterback a multi-year deal where the guarantee is spread out. If he’s bad then, there’d be dead cap hits, but he wouldn’t be uncuttable. Or, perhaps in the right situation — and you’d have to think a Chip Kelly offense would qualify — Kaepernick would renegotiate his deal and go to a team that would schematically commit to optimizing his talents.

4) And if it fails? Then Chip Kelly can go back to college, where a million jobs will be open — or be available for him in the sense LSU and Texas would be now. And the Eagles move on a year later, knowing they gave the experiment every opportunity to succeed, and that it just didn’t work. Then they can overhaul everything, again.

To reiterate, the worst case scenario of this deal would be that a year from now everybody would be in more or less the same position they’re in now. Chip Kelly goes back to school. The Eagles need to roll the dice again on a new coach and front office. Colin Kaepernick is broken. However, the potential upside would make the gamble worth the risk for everybody involved.