Eagles might try to move up for Marcus Mariota? Good luck

It's easy to link an NFL coach to drafting a player he had in college.

That's how more than a few mock drafts had the Buffalo Bills and Doug Marrone taking Syracuse quarterback Ryan Nassib, who Marrone coached in college, with the eighth overall pick of the 2013 NFL draft. Nassib went in the fourth round to the New York Giants.

So plan on a lot of speculation that the Philadelphia Eagles will somehow land quarterback Marcus Mariota. Mariota, Oregon's Heisman Trophy winner, played for Eagles coach Chip Kelly in college. And, it turns out, the Eagles are reportedly trying to move up to take Mariota.

NJ.com, citing "a person familiar with the Eagles' offseason plans," said the team will try to move up and get Mariota.

That's where it gets tricky.

The Eagles have the 20th pick of the first round. Mariota is expected to go in the top few picks, maybe first overall, which presents a problem.

In 2012, when Robert Griffin III was the second pick of the draft, the Rams got two first-round picks and a second-round pick to move from No. 2 to No. 6. That's three premium picks to move up four spots. The Bills sent a future first-round pick to move up five spots to No. 4 to draft receiver Sammy Watkins last year.

What will the Eagles need to trade to move from No. 20 to No. 1, the Liberty Bell?

"It's probably going to take moving up twice to do it," the source told NJ.com. "There's going to be some wheeling and dealing involved."

Expect this rumor to stay hot for the next three months leading up to the draft. It's a natural one, and Kelly has raved about Mariota before. But if the Eagles actually pull off a deal (deals?) to get Mariota, it will probably take so much it would make the RG3 trade look like the Redskins were shopping for that pick at the dollar store. And it might not make sense to trade away years of valuable draft picks and ruin the organizational depth for a quarterback when Kelly has already had relatively good success with Nick Foles and Mark Sanchez playing quarterback.

So any Eagles fans who are hoping for Mariota might want to be careful what they wish for.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdowncorner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab

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