McCoy’s return to Philly would make sense
LeSean McCoy returning to Philadelphia is one of those trades in sports that makes so much sense you wonder what the holdup is.
The Eagles now need an elite offensive playmaker of McCoy’s standing. And his current employer, the Buffalo Bills, can make do without him in what clearly now is a full-bore rebuild.
The Eagles learned following their home-field loss to Minnesota Sunday that No. 1 running back Jay Ajayi tore an ACL during the game and is lost for the season. The defending Super Bowl champs had already lost their other top rusher from 2017, LeGarrette Blount, when he signed in Detroit.
The Eagles are left with Darren Sproles, Corey Clement, Wendell Smallwood and Josh Adams.
Sproles has been out since Week 2 with a hamstring injury and won’t play Thursday at the New York Giants. Clement is expected to return from a quad injury that has kept him out of the last two Eagles games, both losses.
None of those four backs are as dangerous as McCoy, who proved Sunday in Buffalo’s upset win over Tennessee that he can still be relied upon to carry a sizable load (24 carries for 85 yards) and at age 30 he remains as elusive as any ball-carrier in the league.
Since Monday, the web has been soaked in McCoy-back-toPhilly speculation. He starred as an Eagle for his first six NFL seasons from 2009-14 before being traded to Buffalo. McCoy gained 6,792 of his 10,262 career rush yards in Philly.
Bills head coach Sean McDermott addressed the McCoy trade speculation at a Wednesday news conference without saying anything of substance. And that’s the take-away. “LeSean is one of our better players,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a good game the other day. Really, we’re just looking forward to playing the Houston Texans (on Sunday).
“We get calls all the time, incoming calls happen all the time. (GM) Brandon (Beane) and I talk a lot and I won’t go into any more detail than that.”
So McDermott did not come close to denying the Bills might deal McCoy before the NFL’s Oct. 30 trade deadline — to Philadelphia or wherever. He certainly did not insist the Bills have no desire to deal away by far their most effective offensive player.
When he spoke to reporters later Wednesday, McCoy did not deny a trade possibility either.
He merely refused to go into details, saying he’d “heard about” such talk, but the matter would be up to his agent and Bills management. McCoy was one of the most popular Eagles players this century before being sent to the Bills in March 2015.
Buffalo TV station WIVB’s sports director Josh Reed tweeted Tuesday that the Eagles indeed had reached out to Buffalo about obtaining McCoy.
What’s more, reports said the Eagles restructured defensive tackle Fletcher Cox’s contract over the weekend to free up at least US$6 million in 2018 cap space. Acquiring McCoy would eat up about $4.3 million of that. Before restructuring Cox’s contract, the Eagles did not have $4.3 million in cap space.
The Bills should seek a trade partner willing to give Buffalo, in return for McCoy, a player or players who can more directly help struggling rookie quarterback Josh Allen rather than a draft pick. Ideally, a good interior offensive lineman. But it’d be tough to get any team to part with one, so failing that a good wide receiver with reliable hands who runs precise routes.
It helps no one in this scenario, especially anyone in Buffalo, to have such trade talk hanging over everything for the next three weeks until the deadline. If the Bills are inclined to trade McCoy, they should do it immediately. Tomlin fined: The NFL fined Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin $25,000 for his sharp post-game criticisms of officials on Sunday, per reports. The league was right to punish Tomlin harshly. He’s a member of the league’s competition committee and should be far above that. Otherwise, resign from the committee and criticize away. Extra points: More from the wit and wisdom file of New England coach Bill Belichick. Asked Wednesday if he feels his team is playing for the AFC’s top seed against Kansas City on Sunday night, he said, “I feel like we’re playing Kansas City.” Yeah, but doesn’t it seem like the stakes are higher for this game? “It feels like we’re playing Kansas City,” he said … Cincinnati signed TE Matt Lengel off Houston’s practice squad and onto the Bengals’ active 53-man roster … New England’s top CB Stephon Gilmore, who specializes in both man coverage and quiet humility, explained in a radio interview why he’s not like loudmouth Jacksonville CB Jalen Ramsey: “It’s his personality. That’s not my style, but I find a lot of guys that talk are mostly zone(-coverage) guys, so they have a lot of energy to do that.” Woohoo! Let’s hope the two teams meet again in the playoffs.