Whatever you think about Chip Kelly's reconstruction of the Philadelphia Eagles, it's undeniable that he isn't following the traditional roster rebuilding plan. Unorthodox is an understatement for the former Oregon Ducks head coach, who has shaken up the Eagles about as much as imaginable in his two years at the helm of the organization.
Is Chip Kelly a madman or mastermind?
Is the Eagles head coach a genius or a lunatic?
In the 2015 offseason alone, Kelly traded the team's all-time leading rusher LeSean McCoy to the Buffalo Bills and shipped the starting quarterback, Nick Foles, off to the St. Louis Rams in exchange for Sam Bradford. He also cut ties with Eagles stalwarts like Trent Cole and Todd Herremans, while snagging high-priced free agents like DeMarco Murray. He even grabbed headlines when he inked Tim Tebow to a free agent deal in April, and then declared that he wasn't just a camp arm and is here to compete for a job.
Kelly’s crazy approach to overhauling a team isn’t limited to trades and free agency either. Greg Bedard of Sports Illustrated penned a fascinating profile of the Eagles coach for this week’s magazine, explaining the method behind his madness. Kelly knows exactly the type of player he prefers at each position, in terms of physical specifications and mental capacity. As he puts it, Kelly wants big players because “bigger people beat up little people.”
We won’t know until the fall if Kelly built a winning football team or if his transactions spree crippled the Eagles. Is he football’s mad scientist, or is he just mad?
Genius
1. He wins
If the wheels fall off for the Eagles and they finish with a losing record, that would be a first for Kelly. The Eagles went 10-6 in each of his first two seasons with the team, reaching the playoffs in 2013 and barely missing them in 2014. And there’s no doubt he was a winner at Oregon, where he compiled a 46-7 record and reached four BCS games, including the national title game during the 2010 season.
Even the New Hampshire Wildcats went to the FCS quarterfinals in Kelly’s last three seasons as the team’s offensive coordinator before he left to join Oregon.
Until Kelly stops winning, it’s hard to argue that he’s not doing something right.
2. Smart people think he’s smart
Kelly is a quiet guy who doesn't reveal much about his personal life, but he does have friends. Bedard's article features rave reviews of Kelly from many of the NFL's brightest minds, including Houston Texans head coach Bill O'Brien, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and Dallas Cowboys executive Stephen Jones.
O'Brien's experiences with Kelly date all the way back to 1994 when New Hampshire coaches met with the coaches of the Brown Bears, where O'Brien was a tight ends and linebackers coach.
“The first time you meet him, you know he’s smart,” says O’Brien, now entering his second year as the Texans’ coach. “He’s a quick thinker. He changes gears so fast: He can be talking about one thing and then change to something else in a beat. But he’s also a real good listener. And it doesn’t take long to realize he thinks differently. You’re like, Who is this guy?”
Glowing endorsements don’t mean much if a coach isn’t winning, but couple the talk with the results and Kelly has some credibility.
3. There’s a precedent for forward-thinking coaches in the NFL.
As noted by Bedard, three of the NFL’s most successful coaches -- Bill Walsh, Jimmy Johnson and Bill Belichick -- have a history of questioning established practices. Each of them were resolute in the type of player they wanted at the outset, and were not afraid to implement their own systems despite their unproven track records at the time.
Like Kelly, Walsh favored an innovative offensive scheme that was considered "too pass-happy" and "finesse-oriented" in the late '70s when he jumped from Stanford to the 49ers.
"No question, the innovation [Walsh and Kelly] have with their offenses and how to run a team are similar," says former 49ers CEO and president Carmen Policy. "People scoffed at Bill at first, and continued to scoff at his West Coast offense even after the first Super Bowl.
Johnson made a bold roster decision during his first season in Dallas that was eerily similar to Kelly's shocking trade of McCoy this offseason. The former Cowboys coach sent the league's No. 2 rusher, Herschel Walker, to the Minnesota Vikings for several players and draft picks. It was a move that few people could comprehend in 1989, but ultimately became a boon for the Cowboys and a bust for the Vikings.
When Belichick got the Patriots job in 2000 he soon overhauled the entire operation of the franchise, changing everything from scouting to media relations, much like Kelly has done in his short tenure with the Eagles.
Lunatic
1. He has very specific body-type measurements for his preferred type of players.
Kelly just doesn’t want “big” players, he has extremely detailed physical requirements for players at each position.
For example, he prefers that his wideouts are at least 6 feet tall and his defensive ends must be at least 6’6. The most important characteristic in an interior lineman is not hand size or arm length, but rather the size of their knees.
According to Bedard, Kelly prefers players that have “knees with a circumference of at least 18 inches—an identifier of guys who are built solidly in the lower body and thus, the Eagles believe, less susceptible to injuries.”
2. The discrepancy in the team’s spending on offense vs. defense is getting bigger.
Prior to last season, Kelly acknowledged that the Eagles were allocating too much of their salary cap to the offense, yet his moves this offseason only further widened the gap.
The team spent roughly 25 percent more on offense than defense in 2014, and that figure increased to 30 percent this winter when they swapped Foles for Bradford (and his $12 million cap hit). The Eagles are projected to spend more than $80 million on offensive players in 2015, the second-highest amount according to Overthecap.com.
The Eagles' offense, which ranked in the top five in both scoring and total yards in both 2013 and 2014, hardly needed that extra spending. The team's defense, on the other hand, allowed 25 points per game last year and ranked 28th in yards allowed. Adding fuel to the fire, Kelly's lone postseason appearance in 2013 resulted in an opening-round loss to the New Orleans Saints and their fourth-ranked defense.
3. Kelly’s wild offseason has completely overhauled the Eagles’ roster
The bizarre moves that Kelly made this offseason seemed impulsive, if not crazy, to many fans and even reporters that cover the game on a daily basis:
-Trade the starting QB, who two seasons ago threw 27 touchdowns and just two interceptions, for an unproven young quarterback that has suffered two ACL tears in the last two years? Check.
-Trade the league’s second-leading rusher over the last two seasons, for a linebacker that also was coming off a season-ending ACL injury? Check.
-Replace the league’s second-leading rusher over the last two seasons with the only guy to run for more yards than him since 2013? Check.
-Let the team’s leading receiver walk in free agency and replace him with ... a rookie? Check.
-Release a slew of veterans -- including linebacker Trent Cole, cornerback Cary Williams, guard Todd Herremans and tight end James Casey -- who provided a ton of leadership and experience on both sides of the ball? Check.
-Sign a questionable quarterback who hasn’t thrown a pass in the NFL since 2012? Check.
We know that Kelly has a plan, but it’s hard not to be puzzled by several of the moves he made this offseason. Is the Eagles’ head coach a brilliant mastermind or a bizarre oddball?
Read the entire article at SI and decide for yourself.
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