Chase Daniel is not capable of leading the Philadelphia Eagles
Career backup quarterback Chase Daniel cannot lead the Philadelphia Eagles in the event of injury to starting quarterback Sam Bradford.
It’s common knowledge that Philadelphia Eagles starting quarterback Sam Bradford is injury prone. Last season, Sam was forced to sit out two games, and both of those games ended in losses. Fans continue to ask themselves about what would have happened if he was healthy. Would two games have made a difference in the division? Yes it would have.
The dark cloud of two ACL injuries will hang over Sam for the remainder of his entire career. Every time Sam gets sacked, fans hold their breath until he picks himself up from the turf. Every time Sam runs with the ball, thousands of fans scream at their television for him to stop those shenanigans.
Fans of this team live in constant fear that their starting quarterback will be hurt for the remainder of the season. It’s kept them glued to every single play of every single game.
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Chase Daniel (a career backup) will be forced to take over if Bradford goes down. He was, first, back up to Drew Brees and then, most recently, to Alex Smith. Doug Pederson brought Daniel along with him from the Kansas City Chiefs when he took the coaching job in Philadelphia, but that’s not going to strike fear in the heart of opponents.
So why does Chase make more money as a back up quarterback than 5 starting quarterbacks? Pederson wanted him, that’s why. Pederson spent the last three years in Kansas City teaching his modified version of the “West Coast Offense” to Chase, and he wasn’t about to let all of that go to waste.
Daniel is in Philadelphia, not so much as a back up quarterback as much as he is there to teach the offense to his teammates and to Bradford and to Carson Wentz in particular. Why the three year deal worth seven million a year? It’s an insurance policy. Sam’s ACL can go at any time, and if it does and Wentz is not ready, Daniel will be expected to step up.
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It won’t be pretty though. Bradford and Daniel both signed their deals for 11 million and seven million a year respectively, and all of that was before Philadelphia made the move up in the draft for Wentz. Would Howie Roseman have paid Chase as much for as long of he knew he was going to draft Wentz? Probably not. Roseman had no crystal ball, so he was making sure he had a plan B and plan C in place just in case (even if it was an overpriced investment).
Philadelphia has a 2016 schedule that already looks brutal enough as it is.Without your starting quarterback, it gets tougher. There are many reasons that Daniel is only a back up. Still, he’s a band-aid until the starter returns. That may be all that he is. Daniel cannot lead the Eagles this season or any season for that matter.