Chip Kelly Didn't Want Johnny Manziel After All

One interesting angle to the Philadelphia Eagles' draft night trade down from No. 22 to 26 with the Cleveland Browns involves the player who Cleveland selected: Johnny Manziel, quarterback, Texas A&M.

Prior to the draft there had been some "buzz" that the Eagles might actually draft the controversial quarterback. These theories were based on old evidence that Chip Kelly once recruited Johnny Manziel to Oregon. Some thought Manziel was the "perfect" fit for Kelly's offense. Perhaps to little surprise, it turns out those reports never really had any substance. Kelly had the chance to draft Manziel and passed over him with ease. The Eagles' head coach was asked about Manziel after the team made their selection of Marcus Smith at No. 26.

Q: Johnny Manziel, the guy that you said broke your heart once?

CHIP KELLY:  He broke my heart in college, yeah.

Q: Did you have any conversations about him or because you had Nick Foles, that was not an option?

CHIP KELLY:  We're always going to go by our board.  I love him, I think he's a dynamic quarterback.  I think we have a very, very good quarterback situation, not only with Nick, but you add Mark Sanchez in, Matt Barkley, we think quarterback is a strength for us right now.  We felt like the pass rusher who we had rated higher was the guy we were going to take.

Simple as that.

Kelly is happy with his quarterback contingent for now and it's hard to see why he wouldn't be. Foles is coming off a great year where he threw 27 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. While the possibility of the Eagles selecting Manziel was extremely exciting/terrifying, it never really made any sense. (Just ask Mark Saltveit.) And thus Mr. Football will start his career in Cleveland instead.