Peter King of Sports Illustrated and MMQB.com has the scoop on how the Sam Bradford trade went down. He spoke with both Minnesota Vikings GM Rick Spielman and Philadelphia Eagles GM Howie Roseman to create a mini oral history of how this all went down.
“I’m staring at the ceiling, wide awake, at 2:30,” Roseman said to Spielman, according to King, “and [wife] Mindy says, ‘You okay?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not okay. We’re about to change a lot of lives here.’”
“Same thing with me,” Spielman said in return. “Couldn’t sleep. I was out at 4 a.m. walking the dogs.”
The deal took 48 hours to consummate, according to King, including the five-hour conversation that wrapped things up at around 6:30 am on Saturday.
Spielman knows he gave up a lot, but felt it was necessary given where the team was projected to be at the end of the season had Teddy Bridgewater stayed healthy. Teams knew it, and the demand was high.
“Some teams asked for a first-round pick and a core young player,” Spielman told King. “I can understand the pick. But we worked too hard over the past three years to put all that time and energy into drafting and developing a solid core of this team. I was taken aback who they were asking for. Players who’d been in the Pro Bowl.
“I mean, in the off-season you’ve got time. There’s not blood in the water in the off-season. But now there was.”
For more on how the deal was made, and how Vikings offensive coordinator Norv Turner factors into the equation, head over the MMQB.SI.com.
[Sports Illustrated]
