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Andy Reid Calls The Kevin Kolb Trade Situation “Unique,” Claims Juan Castillo Promotion Had Nothing To Do With Lockout
It’s no secret that the Philadelphia Eagles are in a very tough spot when it comes to Kevin Kolb and his future. With the current NFL lockout in place the Eagles cannot make any draft day trades for Kevin Kolb or even cut a deal behind “closed doors,” where they could draft one player that a trade partner wants and the trade partner would draft someone the Eagles desire and after it’s all said-and-done a trade will be consummated. The only way Philadelphia can deal Kolb according to Reid is if they dish out future draft picks for next year. That’s a decision that the Eagles front office and Andy Reid will have to deal with as they listen to offers that continue to come in.There are plenty of veteran-ready teams that could use a young quarterback, who’s seen some playing time, mainly teams such as Arizona, Minnesota, Seattle, San Francisco, Tennessee and even Cincinnati, if Carson Palmer gets his way. Kevin Kolb is the hottest commodity on the trade market right now and the Eagles cannot do too much with the lockout in place. It’ll be interesting to see if the Eagles do indeed deal Kolb, a player, who quite frankly has gotten a ton of hype when we’ve seen a relatively small sample size of his ability, in terms of playing time, and what compensation they’ll get back in return.
Andy Reid joined WIP in Philadelphia with Howard Eskin and Rob Ellis to discuss not being able to make draft day trades with the current lockout in place, not being able to make draft day trades for Kevin Kolb, how difficult is it to make a trade with Kevin Kolb for a future draft pick next year instead of a draft pick this year, the decision to promote Juan Castillo to defensive coordinator having to do with the lockout and pinpointing a particular reason for why Michael Vick and the Eagles offense struggled in the last three games.
You can’t even make trades in the lockout where you say you’ll take one player in the draft and the other team will take a player and than after the lockout ends you’ll make the trade?
“No. No. No. Not at all. That’s…you don’t want to do that. Not from a third party in that way either. That’s also part of it, so you can’t say you’re going to take this pick and than give me that pick for Kevin [Kolb] later or whatever. You can’t do that. I mean that’s a no-no there.”
You can’t make any draft day trade for Kevin Kolb right?
“There are no trade that take place until a new collective bargaining deal is done and than you can talk about it that, so that’s after the draft than you’re talking about future picks if you decide to make a trade with another team. If the deal were to get done before the draft than you can talk about deals that would take place during this draft and picks this draft.”
How difficult is it for you to trade Kevin Kolb for a future pick in next year’s draft? It’s a difficult situation for you to weigh trading a guy that can help you next year for a draft pick that you can’t use until later?
“Well if I was trading Kevin, I mean you already put that thing in the basket. Well I’m listening to offers. This is all out of the crystal ball [in terms of listening to a deal for Kevin. I’m listening to offers. If they wanted to trade you Howard [Eskin] I would listen to that too, but I listen to everything. Would we keep Rob [Ellis] and trade you? Listen it’s all good. Anyway you’re right Howard. It’s a unique situation. You’ve gotta evaluate whatever player it comes down to at that particular time period after the draft or whenever this thing gets taken care of after the draft or before. You gotta figure out the compensation that you think is right for that player and than there also has to be that side of that. There have to be teams interested in whatever player you’re thinking about trading so and listen it’s okay if it’s in a year. We’ve done those things before, it’s just what that compensation is. It doesn’t have to be a right now thing. It can be a year in advance and you’re still going to be okay. It might not look great on the 28th, 29th and 30th [of April] in the draft, but it sure will look good that following year when you’re sitting there and you have an opportunity to pick a good player.”
Did the decision to promote Juan Castillo to the defensive coordinator position have to do with a lockout being in place, so Castillo would know the system already/keep it in place? Castillo could also be prepared for a short turnaround if the lockout were to be lifted right before the 2011 season began?
“Well it really didn’t. I wanted to make sure it was…that’s too short time [the lockout being a factor to promote Juan Castillo to defensive coordinator]. I think right there if I thought that way. I thought that he was the best candidate after I made my evaluations of different people and you understand on that Rob [Ellis] that in order to make that move Juan was coaching a very important position, so to make that move I had to make sure I had that base covered before I ever did anything, so it wasn’t that Juan name wasn’t in my mind until that last moment there. It was in there early, but trying to find a guy to replace him, Juan had developed if not the best, one of the top offensive line coaches in the National Football League…so to replace that I had to make sure I found a person. Those guys are hard to find, those offensive line coaches.”
Can you point a particular reason for why Michael Vick and the offense really struggled in the last three games of the season last year?
“You now Rob [Ellis] we gotta do a better job against the blitz and so that’s what we’ll work out and we played some pretty good teams. I don’t want to slight the teams that we played, but we played some teams that ran a few wild and crazy blitzes and we learned some things. I think that was good. We had a young center that’s very capable and we have a new quarterback and so it’s just a matter of everybody getting on the same page there.”
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