August 17, 2014, 12:15



Chip Kelly doesn’t generally answer hypothetical questions. Not usually. But before Sunday’s training camp practice at the NovaCare Complex, he indulged one reporter who wondered what might happen if another team inquired about Mark Sanchez’s availability.

The question: “What happens if somebody calls you and says, ‘We’re interested in Mark?’”

“What are you giving me?” Kelly replied.

The head coach continued: “I mean, we’ll listen to anything for anybody. We’re not just going to put our head in the sand and say no. It better be a pretty good deal in terms of what it is. But that’s not in any of our thought process.”

Kelly added that the Eagles need Sanchez because of how he’s played so far in practice and preseason games, and because they believe he can function in the offense if pressed into regular season duty should something happen to Nick Foles. The head coach also underscored his often repeated preference for having two quarterbacks with experience as starters in the NFL.

It should also be noted that Kelly said the Eagles haven’t been contacted by anybody about Sanchez.

“Mark has played well, but we haven’t had anybody call or ask us anything,” Kelly said. “That’s not something we’re talking about because you’re just spending time on things that could happen, should happen. I don’t know. But I know we’re really happy about him.”

So no one has called. And the Eagles aren’t thinking about trading Sanchez. Fine. But simply entertaining the idea of possibly trading Sanchez -- or any Eagle -- was an interesting departure from Kelly’s default policy of avoiding hypotheticals.

In the preseason opener, Sanchez went 7 for 10 for 79 yards against the Bears in Chicago. Sanchez followed that up by completing 11 of 12 passes against the Patriots for 117 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. He’s also performed well during training camp practices.

“I feel very, very confident in our quarterback situation, probably better than a lot of teams going into it because I think we’ve got two guys right now that have actually played in games,” Kelly said. “Mark’s got [62] games under his resume and he’s playing at a really high level right now, and obviously Nick’s coming off an outstanding season last year. So we feel real confident. But I’m also a big guy that you better have two quarterbacks in this league. I think unless something blows you out of the water, we’re real confident with Mark.”

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