Nick Piccone
Peter King of the MMQB has a great synopsis of everything that went down between the Eagles and Vikings from the moment Teddy Bridgewater went down with a season-ending injury to his knee to the trade that rocked the NFL on Saturday. It’s a great read. But I want to focus on when the talks really heated up between the teams and the aftermath, as you can see below.
Friday
Roseman, 8 a.m.: I told Rick we were in the same place. I told him he’d have to knock us over.
Eagles coach Doug Pederson has left the team to be at the bedside of his gravely ill father.Roseman: With all the roster decisions we’re having to make, and with Doug’s family situation, I just told Rick that unless we’re talking the one in ’17 and another first high pick, it’s useless to talk.
Late in the afternoon, Spielman offers the 2017 first-round pick.
Spielman: That’s when I got more aggressive with Howie. I knew it would be a significant compensation, asking a team to give their starting quarterback eight days before the start of the season. I will do everything in my power to always give us the best chance to win, and it came down to—this is what we’re dealing with. I can’t change that. We have a good football team, a young football team. Parting with the one, I knew I still had eight picks next year, including two threes and two fours. What really was significant for us was the second year of the contract with Sam. No one knows how long it’s going to take Teddy to recover. I had one other thing going with another team on Friday, but we liked Sam a lot.
Roseman, 7 p.m.: We were settled on the one, but we wanted better than a four in 2018. We were giving up our starting quarterback, who we didn’t want to give up. So there was some negotiation that needed to be done that night.
Spielman, midnight: We were a little punch drunk by then. We got it done, basically, but we had to button it up in the morning.
The fourth-round pick in 2018 can rise to as high as a second-round pick depending on the Vikings‘ playoff performance in 2016.
Saturday
Roseman, 8 a.m.: [Owner] Jeffrey Lurie is always supportive when we’re trying to improve our team, and he signed off on the deal. Give him credit, for doing something with his team a week before the season that changes the team like this. Now I spoke with Coach Pederson, who was in Louisiana with his family, and we had a deal. I called Rick. Coach Pederson called Sam. I was thinking, “We’ve changed two teams today. We’ve changed a lot of lives.”
Spielman, 4 p.m.: Sam came in the building, and he seemed very happy. I told him, “Congratulations,” and he said, “I’ve got to get to work.” And he went and got going right away with [quarterbacks coach] Scott Turner.
You can read the entire piece here.