Chris Polk, We Hardly Knew Ye

I'm sure these are Gang Signs

> Eagles rescind restricted free agent offer to RB Chris Polk.

Consider this to be yet another in a long series of Andy Reid's Picks Need Not Apply. Polk's only -- repeat, ONLY -- failing as an NFL running back is a relatively slow recovery pattern from injury. In terms of speed, blocking and catching, he's all league average or better. He's also young, not on the downside of his career, Not Small, and has a track record of high production in limited carries. While some saw him purely as a short yardage back due to Franchise Nero Chip Kelly's use of him last year, he's also taken kickoffs the distance, and scored on long runs. He's got wheels. In short, he's everything you want your RB2 to be. In Nero Kelly's Eagles, he's RB4, and hence, gone.

What this reminds me of, on a lesser level, is when the franchise pissed away Charlie Garner in the mid 1990s. The fan base loved Garner as the young speed back to Ricky Watters, who was the veteran power guy. Management saw Garner as too small to stay healthy. Garner wound up being a poor man's Brian Westbrook for the better part of a decade, most of which was spent in Oakland during the last years that franchise was worth a damn.

Anyway, back to Polk. If you want to defend the move... you can't. He had to go because Nero Kelly had to have expensive small back Darren Sproles a year ago, and Sproles didn't age out last year. He had to go because trading LeSean McCoy, the best RB in franchise history, was necessary because McCoy was an uppity Reid guy, and Nero Kelly had to have his Oregon guy in Kiko Alonso. (Hope he's healthy! Oh, wait, I forgot, I don't hope he's healthy. I hope the Eagles go 0-16 next year with Tim Tebow getting all the starts.) He had to go because letting DeMecco Ryans and his aged-out knees go wasn't possible, because Ryans is Nero Kelly's personal binkie. He had to go because Nero Kelly had to replace McCoy with overpriced injury-riddled guys in DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews.

In short, it's just another bad move, predicated by the dozen-odd bad moves made before it. Quick, someone find out if any of his friends growing up have ever been in a gang.

And honestly, given the injury history of Murray and Mathews, and the size of Sproles... he might have been RB1 by the second half of next year's Disaster Team. But Nero Kelly has Magic Smoothies, so I'm sure all of the hurt guys will be fine.

Have a great rest of your career, Chris Polk. I know that being let go sucks, and that it's all kinds of worrisome about where you'll play next, and how you'll make your money. But trust me, getting away from Nero Kelly will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to your career...