Does Sam Bradford Still Have the Mental Game Needed to Play in the NFL?

Sam Bradford came out of Oklahoma with all the hype and promise in the world. He had lost a season due to a shoulder injury, but the NFL-loving free world was still pretty high on him. Things never quite worked in St. Louis for him though. Part of the blame can be put on a lack of sufficient play makers around him, but then there were the injuries that cost him the better part of two seasons.

So the question has to be asked has he been away from the game for too long? Does he still have what it takes?

The Eagles are certainly banking on him having it of course, but there has to be some concern about whether his head is going to be in the right place. When he was injured during a preseason game against the Cleveland Browns last year--his second ACL tear in nine months--he thought about quitting football.

It's hard not to blame him. It takes a lot to come back from a serious injury and having just done it he was not looking forward to having to do it again. Bradford told a local St. Louis paper he had thought about quitting and had some serious doubts about his NFL future. Josh Heupel, his former QB coach at Oklahoma, was able to talk him out of it:

"It was one of those moments where, after all the time and energy and passion that he poured into rehabilitating himself in the first injury, you feel like you're snakebitten," Heupel said in a phone interview (via Philly.com). "You don't know when, if, or how your body is going to respond and what your next opportunity is. You're really just in a lot of limbo. Sometimes, I think, just having a voice from an outside perspective is something that can be valuable."

Okay, so Heupel talked him out of quitting, but will he still have what it takes to play at a high level? Will he be the fearless leader that the Philadelphia offense needs? Or will he be gun shy? Will he be nervous about taking another hit to the knee and getting injured again?

Injuries are a regrettable part of the game, but they happen. If you play like you are worried about getting hurt you are not going to play very well. Considering what he has been through it would not be shocking if Bradford was a little gun shy.

It would be a shame if that ends up being the case. Bradford was a heck of QB at Oklahoma and he was not bad with St. Louis either. Under Chip Kelly and with the weapons the Eagles have he could finally blossom in to the kind of quarterback the Rams had hoped for when they drafted him with the No. 1 pick in 2010.

We'll have to wait till the Eagles first preseason game to find out.

Loading...