Former Eagles Coach Chip Kelly Left a Silver Lining to a Gold Standard in the Making

You may have heard by now that former Philadelphia Eagles Head Coach Chip Kelly is back in the NFL.  He was just signed by the Las Vegas Raiders to be their next offensive coordinator, coaching under newly hired Raiders head coach Pete Carroll.

Why, you may ask? Well, apparently the Raiders told candidates during their search they were making a serious commitment with an infusion of cash from the new owners. Chip Kelly was lured to Vegas with a deal averaging $6 million per year, per sources. That makes him the highest paid coordinator in the league.

Kelly himself was a quarterback in high school at Manchester Central but played defensive back in college at the University of New Hampshire.  Since then he became an offensive guru who often thinks outside the box and has had very successful seasons as a college head coach.  He grew to legendary status while running the Ducks program in Eugene from 2009 – 2012 amassing a 46-7 record and coming within a last second field goal of winning a National Championship.  

But as a lot of college coaches do Kelly tried to take his talents to the NFL and he landed a gig as the Eagles Head Coach in 2013, as he was hired by another outside the box thinker in Birds’ G.M. Howie Roseman.

Out Of Control

Kelly’s tenure was an abstract disaster and should be remembered as a lesson in why owner’s should be careful about giving the head coach complete control. Kelly had total control of the Eagles roster, and he made several asinine moves over the course of his three seasons in Philadelphia.  According to ESPN.com, Kelly’s need for personnel control is what led to his firing.  Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie offered to let Kelly keep his job if Kelly would be willing to give up personnel control, but Kelly wanted no part of that offer. 

In his first year in Philly, Kelly was a hit, inheriting a four-win team from Andy Reid and reeling off 10 wins, a division title, and a playoff berth in his first  season.

But problems started to arise when a power struggle came to a head between Roseman and Kelly.  Kelly won that battle but ultimately lost the war.  The battle was over player personnel.  Eagles owner Jeffrey Laurie sided with Kelly at the time and Roseman was sent to his “room” sulking while still earning $1.7 million per year.

The main complaints against Kelly ,and they were valid, were that he traded away or released not only fan favorites like Nick Foles, but also seriously valuable assets to the team in the league’s leading rusher, LeSean McCoy and the Birds best wide receiver at the time in Desean Jackson.  The Birds all-time leading rusher, LeSean McCoy, was whisked off to Buffalo for linebacker Kiko Alonzo, because apparently Kelly wanted a running back in his hurry-up-all-the-time offense to run vertically and not horizontally.  This despite McCoy leading the league in rushing in Kelly’s first year as the Birds’ head coach.  I’m not making that up.  He actually traded McCoy to the Bills two years after he led the league in rushing and put up another 1319 yards in Kelly’s second year at the helm.  

To top that off he flat out released Desean Jackson, who caught 82 balls for 1332 yards and nine touchdowns in the only season that Jackson started all 16 games in his career.  It was Jackson’s best year as a pro and Kelly gave him his outright release after the 2013 season.

Birds Of A Feather

The two Birds former superstars started up a podcast last offseason, The 25/10 Show and on an episode last May touched on a topic that Eagles fans had been waiting years to hear about – the Chip Kelly era in Philly.

The short-lived Eagles head coach’s inability to connect with his players and Eagles’ staffers alike had a negative effect on any benefit of the doubt that ownership might have given him especially when in season three, the Eagles were a fledgling 6-9 after the Washington Redskins embarrassed them on Lincoln Financial Field soil by capturing the NFC East crown that day and parading around the house that Jeffrey built in their crisp new white t-shirts and hats.  

During his time in Philly, despite doing some things offensively that were innovative and somewhat successful, Kelly lost the locker room and failed to evolve from coaching college students to grown men. 

Time can do a lot to heal, but it was clear on their podcast that McCoy and Jackson are still a bit sour about what happened, especially Jackson despite being 11 years removed from the situation. The WR has obviously been biding his time to talk about this topic, having touched on it briefly over the years, and along with his former teammate LeSean McCoy, they finally got to speak their truths.

Among things as seemingly trivial as not being allowed to wear black socks, what really irritated both Jackson and McCoy was Kelly stating there were no set starters, and they would rotate guys who were getting starter reps.  The duo felt like this was disrespectful to the caliber of guys they had on the roster.

But the main  theme of the whole show was that McCoy claimed that Kelly appeared, at least, uncomfortable around black players. 

According to McCoy, Kelly tried to repress cultural expression in the locker room, rather than embrace it. Players weren’t allowed to listen to music without headphones, they weren’t allowed to drive their own cars to games, and couldn’t listen to music at practice that had curse words in it.

McCoy said they he felt like Kelly traded him to the Bills to die and that hearing that the Eagles traded him to Buffalo in exchange for linebacker Kiko Alonso was shocking, noting Buffalo Bills head coach at the time, Rex Ryan, calling it was the fastest trade he’s ever experienced.  Ryan was quoted as saying that, “When the Eagles said they only wanted Alonso in return for the deal, I immediately accepted and hung up the phone.”

No Love Lost

Birds’ former quarterback Michael Vick once told McCoy that he did more crying with Chip Kelly in Philly than he did during his 23 months in Fort Leavenworth. 

Former Eagles’ left tackle Jason Peters had this to say about his former coach, “A bullshit-ass guy, man, that don’t know how to deal with star players. That’s his MO.”

Jackson said that after their playoff loss to the Saints in 2013, he was pissed off that he didn’t get the ball more, when guys like Riley Cooper were getting more targets (8 to Jackson’s 6). He noted that he ended up skipping exit interviews. When Kelly called to see where he was, Jackson said he basically told him off, and that was the last time he’d ever talk to the coach.

After he was exiled from Philly Kelly spent one year coaching the 49ers to a 2-14 record before getting his walking papers in San Francisco.

He took a year off  before he ended up back in the college ranks as the head coach of UCLA but he left after six seasons and a 35-34 record to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State where he recently won a national championship under head coach Ryan Day, who ironically, was Kelly’s quarterbacks coach when he was with the Eagles in 2015.

After his self-imposed demotion from UCLA head coach to Ohio State offensive coordinator the L.A. media pounced on Kelly, calling his six year tenure with the Bruins “quiet quitting”.  He was accused of putting in a minimal effort in recruiting, barely engaging with boosters and did next to nothing to enhance his team’s name, image and likeness efforts.

Let that marinate for a few minutes. The highest-paid state employee in California did not want to do his job, so he left.

As some of us do, we get wiser as we get older.  It appears that Kelly may have found his niche as a highly sought after offensive mind but not so much a leader of men type.  The six million dollars might have helped his decision to be more apt to thrive as a supporting actor versus a leading man as well.

Silver and Gold

So say what you want about Kelly and his failed time in Philly and his alleged character flaws but the truth is this.  Whether you want to admit it or not, Chip Kelly has at least left a tiny smudge of a thumb print on the last eight years of unheralded success for the Philadelphia Eagles.  You want to hate on him, then by all means.  He certainly was not lacking for reasons for Eagles fans not to like about him.  But he should also be remembered for this.  The first two things he did when he was the Birds’ head coach was draft Lane Johnson with the 4th pick overall in 2013 and then he selected Zach Ertz with the Eagles next pick in the second round. Two years later, needing a wide receiver he selected Nelson Agholor with the 20th pick in the first round of the 2015 NFL draft.

All three were beasts in Super Bowl 52.  Ertz caught seven balls for 67 yards and the Super Bowl winning touchdown with 2:21 left in the game while Agholor pulled down nine grabs for 84 yards in the 41-33 victory over the Patriots.  Right tackle Lane Johnson is a first ballot hall of famer and will be hunting for his second Lombardi trophy this coming Sunday against the Chiefs in New Orleans.   

So let’s recap shall we?  Chip Kelly’s Eagles’ tenure was distasteful enough that he didn’t last three full seasons with the Birds.  But his is firing made way for a first time head coach to take over and bring the city its first Superbowl title just two years later, in no small part, with the help of no less than two all-time Eagles that Kelly bequeathed to the franchise, along with a sketchy legacy that left a shiny silver lining to a gold standard in the making.

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