LeSean McCoy reflects on 2015 trade to Bills: 'You sent me there to die'

It was an unassuming winter evening in Western New York, the all-encompassing gray clouds that hung heavy on the sky being indistinguishable from those visible any other night throughout the season.

Emanating from One Bills Drive, however, was an unexpected bright spot, a proverbial beacon of light that converted this seemingly routine March evening into anything but.

The Buffalo Bills agreed to acquire two-time All-Pro running back LeSean McCoy from the Philadelphia Eagles on March 3, 2015, a bold move from new head coach Rex Ryan that suggested the team wanted to step out of the depths of irrelevancy and into the NFL spotlight. ‘Shady,’ to that point in his NFL career, had rushed for 6,792 yards in six seasons and was almost universally viewed as one of the best running backs in football; he was traded for Kiko Alonso, a promising young linebacker who had missed the entirety of the prior season with an ACL injury.

McCoy was justifiably shocked; a Harrisburg, PA native who played collegiately at Pitt, he had never played football outside of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, nor had he ever really had any intentions of doing so. Further adding to the shock was the fact that he had never heard of the player he was traded in exchange for.

“[NFL agent] Drew Rosenhaus, he called me, he said ‘Shady’ . . . ‘This is not a joke,’ that’s the first thing he says to me, he doesn’t even say hello,” McCoy said on a recent episode of The 25/10 Show, a podcast hosted by he and former teammate DeSean Jackson. “‘Shady, it’s not a joke, the Eagles are trading you to the Buffalo Bills.’ I said, ‘Hey, stop playing, what do you want man? What do you want, Drew? I’m busy. He said, ‘I’m not playing, Shady. They’re trading you.’

“I’m like, ‘They’re trading me?’ The next thing I say is, ‘Who are they trading me for?’ I’m thinking, two second-rounders, a good player, this, that, a third. He says ‘Kiko Alonso.’ I took a pause, I said ‘Who is that? Let me look him up. Hold on, Drew, how do you spell that? Who is this dude?! I don’t know who this dude is!’ You know where he went to school at? Oregon.”

🚨 One of the WORST trades in NFL history! 🚨

Chip Kelly traded Shady McCoy for … Kiko Alonso 🥴 #FlyEaglesFly

“WHO IS THIS DUDE?? I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS DUDE IS!!” – @CutonDime25

Subscribe & watch the FULL story 📺 → https://t.co/rLKiTxm9if pic.twitter.com/ObLKH6ZOj9
— 25/10Show (@2510show) May 9, 2024

The Oregon connection noted by McCoy is paramount in the story; then-Philadelphia head coach Chip Kelly, who had, at the time of the trade, just recently gained complete control over the team’s 90-man roster, helmed the University of Oregon’s football program from 2009–2012. Kelly trading a beloved All-Pro who was one of the best in the league at his position for a promising, but unproven young linebacker he had ties to was very much an example of the coach exerting his control of, or ‘putting his stamp’ on, the roster.

And it would be the final nail in the coffin for McCoy and Kelly’s oft-rocky relationship, which the running back has been outspoken about in the past.

The trade, which caught McCoy off guard given his on-field excellence and documented ties to Pennsylvania, sowed seeds of doubt in the running back—is he declining? Is he not good enough? Did the trade say more about LeSean McCoy than it did about Chip Kelly?

“That was the first time it’s ever been basically like, yo, you’re not good enough, we don’t want you,” McCoy said. “And I was like, is it my football? . . . I led the league in rushing the year before, All-Pro, first-team, and all that. The next year I was third in rushing. He said I had a declined year. You didn’t send me to Buffalo because you thought it was the best move for your team, you sent me there to die.”

McCoy would not die in Buffalo—he would thrive. He quickly became a fan favorite as he reaffirmed his status as one of the best running backs in the league, rushing for 3,814 yards and 25 touchdowns throughout his four seasons with the team. Though he didn’t necessarily expect to love his new surroundings, McCoy eventually took to Buffalo, since describing it as a “special place.”

Kelly, on the other hand, would quickly overstay his welcome in Philadelphia; he was fired toward the end of the 2015 NFL season, less than a calendar year after shipping McCoy to Western New York. He landed the San Francisco 49ers’ head coaching job that offseason but was fired after a 2-14 campaign. He returned to the college ranks to coach the UCLA Bruins from 2018–2024, recently leaving to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State.

As for the player whom McCoy had never heard of, Alonso went on to have a fair NFL career. The Eagles traded him to the Miami Dolphins after a single season, where he would play from 2016–2018. He played for the New Orleans Saints in 2019 before bouncing around the league a bit, retiring in 2022.

It would be McCoy who ultimately got the last laugh; he finished his career with over 11,000 rushing yards, winning back-to-back Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before signing a one-day contract to retire with the Eagles in 2021.