Prior to the draft, there was talk that the Eagles liked Geno Smith so much that they could take him with the No. 4 overall pick. As it turned out, not only did the Eagles pass on Smith at No. 4, but they passed on him with their second-round pick, No. 35 overall, too.
But Eagles coach Chip Kelly, who worked Smith out in West Virginia and then brought Smith to Philadelphia for a visit, says the interest was legitimate.
“First off, it wasn’t a smoke screen,” Kelly said on WIP-FM, via Philly.com. “We were as thorough with Geno as anyone else with our evaluation.”
Kelly said he wouldn’t take his time to visit with a player just to give other teams a false impression of his opinion of that player.
“Is it a smoke screen to other people? I think that intrigue and that part of it, I kind of get a kick out of,” Kelly said. “We don’t have enough time to go out there and say, ‘Hey, let’s bluff the other 31 teams in the league by going to do this.’ If we are, we’re wasting our time.”
So the Eagles really did take the time to evaluate Smith. And their evaluation was that not only was he not worth their first-round pick, but he wasn’t even worth their second-round pick.
