Revisiting the Saints-Eagles Trade for Darren Sproles

In March of 2014, the New Orleans Saints took the NFL by surprise and sent the Philadelphia Eagles a nice offseason gift.

General manager Mickey Loomis decided to trade shifty running back Darren Sproles, who was seemingly a perfect fit in Sean Payton's offense, to Philly for a fifth-round pick. At the time, Sproles was 30 and the Saints had a loaded backfield with Pierre Thomas, Mark Ingram and Khiry Robinson, so getting value while they could for Sproles made sense.

But a fifth-round pick? This was a guy coming off a season in which he caught 71 passes for 604 yards and two touchdowns in addition to contributing 220 yards and two touchdowns on the ground. He only missed four games in his three years with New Orleans too.

Then again, the Saints (and most NFL fans) surely didn't expect Sproles to spend SIX more years with the Eagles. Though his last three seasons were marred with injuries and he only played 15 total games, he was a Pro Bowler from 2014-2016 and became an even bigger threat on the ground. He also led the lead in punt return yards and touchdowns in both 2014 and 2015.

Do we really have to answer who won this trade? The Saints used their 2014 fifth-round pick on linebacker Ronald Powell, who played 14 games with the team that year and then never logged another snap in the league again. He was released in 2015 and bounced around a bunch of practice squads before resurfacing in the AAF last year.

Oh yeah, and Sproles, even though he was injured, won a Super Bowl ring with the Birds in 2017.