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News broke on Tuesday evening that the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles had agreed to a trade that will send running back LeSean McCoy to Buffalo and linebacker Kiko Alonso to Philadelphia. The trade won't become official until next week, and the interim space could be filled with an uncomfortable amount of McCoy and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, maneuvering - probably very publicly - to get out of the deal.
But let's start with Alonso, who now has a legitimate case to make against Terrell Owens as the most popular former 16-game Bills player in team history: did he want out of Buffalo? Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com reported as much in the early phases of the Internet's collapsing under the weight of this event last night.
Can confirm ESPN report Eagles have traded Shady McCoy for Kiko Alonso. One for one trade I'm told. Alonso had wanted out of Buffalo. Wow
— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) March 3, 2015
No reason for Alonso's alleged desire has been given thus far, and while some might consider it fun to speculate on the reasoning, it also may not be true. If you're inclined to believe the best of the man who inspired the greatest Twitter hashtag in the history of Bills fans, Tim Graham of The Buffalo News is here to help you out.
Bills fans can find some peace in what a knowledgable source tells me: Kiko Alonso did not request a trade.
— Tim Graham (@ByTimGraham) March 4, 2015
Then again, wanting to be traded is a very different thing from asking your employer to do so. One might think, however, that if a player fresh off of a missed season was interested in leaving the organization that drafted him, he'd be less inclined to appear on the team's nightly radio show to talk about the upcoming Bills season.
In the end, this will ultimately be a footnote to one of the biggest personnel moves in Bills franchise history - and a relatively unimportant one at that, given that the trade came together very quickly and yielded Buffalo a star player. Alonso, who will be 25 in August, reunites in Philly with his college head coach, Chip Kelly - and regardless of how he felt about Buffalo, that's a pretty good situation to land in.