With all the reports that the Eagles were willing to cut Jackson

[IronEagle]

could this be a ploy to attempt to gain leverage in any trade talks?

If other teams believe that the Eagles are willing to release Jackson why would they talk trading anything of much value, especially with his contract which they would have to accept in a trade?

[CCPete]

A better question is.....Why are they playing silly games with .jackson, bringing in a proven bad QB when they still have a defensive backfield that looks like a Swiss cheese commercial?

[Two Gap Penetrator]

I don't think he's tradeable

His cap hit is too high. Especially not now right before the draft. If it was Megatron, maybe. I think it was a ploy to get him to stop whining and shut his mouth about wanting a new contract. A sort of disguised smear campaign if you will.

[PackWest]

Former Packers/Eagles cap guy

Andrew Brandt from the owners meetings:

"The translation for the week comes from Eagles GM Howie Roseman regarding the pending divorce with wide receiver DeSean Jackson: “DeSean is under contract, and that is all there is to report.”

Brandtslation: “No good trade offers yet.”

He also comments on the Westbrook contract talks and over-payment by the Eagles

http://mmqb.si.com/2014/03/25/nfl-ow...etings-primer/

[Two Gap Penetrator]

This comes as a SHOCK to me!

"Retired running back Brian Westbrook had some pointed criticism of former Eagles president Joe Banner, whom he felt disrespected him in negotiations."

[The Ref]

His cap hit is too high. Especially not now right before the draft. If it was Megatron, maybe. I think it was a ploy to get him to stop whining and shut his mouth about wanting a new contract. A sort of disguised smear campaign if you will.

He didn't whine about a new contract. Jezuz H Krist

[Riccardo]

El-Wrongo again.. wooo!

He's on fire!

[The Ref]

He's on fire!

Who do you mean by He?

[AnnapolisEagle]

could this be a ploy to attempt to gain leverage in any trade talks?

If other teams believe that the Eagles are willing to release Jackson why would they talk trading anything of much value, especially with his contract which they would have to accept in a trade?

I think they're almost locked in to keeping him now. I don't think you can talk to him and send a message that has him telling teammates he'll be back, then trade him.

Regardless of what the message from Chip was, DeSean took it that he's still an Eagle and will be this season. Even if Jackson was a problem child in the locker room, I don't think he can risk being looked at as not being a man of his word.

This whole thing has been a mess, from the reporting to the Eagles' handling of rumors. The only person who has actually managed to not bungle this is Jackson himself, which is amazing.

[Riccardo]

Who else? Two Gap

Who do you mean by He?

El-Wrongo II

[nerd]

I think they're almost locked in to keeping him now. I don't think you can talk to him and send a message that has him telling teammates he'll be back, then trade him.

Regardless of what the message from Chip was, DeSean took it that he's still an Eagle and will be this season. Even if Jackson was a problem child in the locker room, I don't think he can risk being looked at as not being a man of his word.

This whole thing has been a mess, from the reporting to the Eagles' handling of rumors. The only person who has actually managed to not bungle this is Jackson himself, which is amazing.

as far as i know the eagles didn't issue a statement till the other day...so we don't really know who was being the rumor mongers.

could have been the front office of the eagles...could have been desean's agent.

i mean, if you look at it there were rumors that desean hadn't heard from the coach...so those came out from desean's camp or desean himself.

bad job all around i would say.

[IronEagle]

as far as i know the eagles didn't issue a statement till the other day...so we don't really know who was being the rumor mongers.

could have been the front office of the eagles...could have been desean's agent.

i mean, if you look at it there were rumors that desean hadn't heard from the coach...so those came out from desean's camp or desean himself.

bad job all around i would say.

There were also rumors that Desean wasn't returning calls from Kelly.

I agree with AE that if Kelly did talk to Jackson and say what we think he did it would be difficult to move Jackson now. Interesting that the communication came at the end of these league meetings. I suspect the Eagles may have been trying to gauge the market for Jackson and it wasn't what they wanted to move him.

[nerd]

could be...but i don't know so i'm trying not to take either side. when they were trying to trade him or possibly trade him or not trade him...who knows...hey, get some draft picks and rebuild the defense and draft a wideout.

now that they aren't...draft some defense and still get another wideout.

i know the eagles front office has used tactics that were shitty before...so they have a track record.

i also know that desean has acted like a spoiled brat and basically tanked a season because he was unhappy so i don't put anything past him either.

basically, it's the status quo for both.

they are most likely full of shit in some regard.

[IronEagle]

could be...but i don't know so i'm trying not to take either side. when they were trying to trade him or possibly trade him or not trade him...who knows...hey, get some draft picks and rebuild the defense and draft a wideout.

now that they aren't...draft some defense and still get another wideout.

i know the eagles front office has used tactics that were shitty before...so they have a track record.

i also know that desean has acted like a spoiled brat and basically tanked a season because he was unhappy so i don't put anything past him either.

basically, it's the status quo for both.

they are most likely full of shit in some regard.

Without taking sides, I can say I agree with the notion that trading Desean for a 3rd round pick or cutting him outright would be really dumb.

[AnnapolisEagle]

There were also rumors that Desean wasn't returning calls from Kelly.

I agree with AE that if Kelly did talk to Jackson and say what we think he did it would be difficult to move Jackson now. Interesting that the communication came at the end of these league meetings. I suspect the Eagles may have been trying to gauge the market for Jackson and it wasn't what they wanted to move him.

I think you're spot-on. They were willing to hear offers but couldn't get enough.

Here's where I think the Eagles screwed up: they should have said outright, and even communicated this to Jackson and the rest of the players clearly, that they will *ALWAYS* pick up the phone when another team calls. "Yes, we're listening to offers...because we listen politely to EVERY offer. We'll laugh at almost all of them, but our job is to win Super Bowls and our responsibility is to the team. That said, DeSean had a great season and we look forward to seeing what he'll do next."

Still non-committal, but at least it shoots some of that stuff down. The "listening to offers" reports cease to have merit, which is where this all took off.

I think the reporters did a shitty job because you have to know how your sources know their information. "League sources" could be the league office, it could be someone at another team.

Take Derrick Gunn's report from last week that the Eagles want at least a third for Jackson.

He quotes a league source as saying the Eagles told Jackson they're not actively shopping him but are listening to offers. That's a pretty important distinction that he made, so that's good. However, that league source has the Eagles seeking "at least a third-round pick." Which tells you nothing, really. He reports the Niners and Patriots inquired about Jackson. Did they offer fifth-rounders? Or a salary swap involving somebody the Eagles would never want? Nobody knows.

And we don't know how the Eagles responded. Did they say, "sure, we'll trade him, but it's not like we'd take a fourth or something." Bingo, they're looking for at least a third.

And that's even assuming this league source actually knows this stuff for a fact, not because he heard it through the grapevine.

Of course, that source could have been in the Eagles front office and insisted on being a "league source" so nobody would know where the info is coming from. That's why I don't think any of the reporters are flat-out making stuff up or anything. They might be getting snowed by someone with a vested interest in driving Jackson's trade value up or down. But they might be repeating information that wasn't good to begin with.

There was a kerfuffle that the Eagles hadn't talked to Jackson, then Ike Reese said they had talked this offseason. This was the day after Les Bowen reported that a source in Jackson's camp (or similar language) had said Jackson and Kelly hadn't talked, but then after Ike's report the same source said they actually had spoken. Well, had they just talked or had that person just found out about it? Not clear.

I'm wondering if Kempski's report was him noticing something interesting and theorizing a bit about Jackson's future but turned out to be pretty spot-on about the Eagles being willing to move him. Then it gets hazy. Willing to move him doesn't necessarily mean "trying to trade him" but, then every reporter connected to every team starts asking questions and then little bits and pieces of info get mixed up and repeated and it all turns to shit.

-AE