Chip Kelly - Head Coach, Philadelphia Eagles

[SunMo]

yeah, i think the same thing.

[ice grillin you]

i think domo pretty much nails it

Chip Kelly hasn't coached a minute in the NFL, which would've concerned me greatly if I owned the Eagles.

I agree with Jeff Lurie when he says Kelly has a brilliant football mind. But the college-to-pro jump is a huge one. Huge enough that I would've stayed away from Kelly and put my money down on one of the pro guys - Gus Bradley or Ken Whisenhunt or Bruce Arians or Lovie Smith.

Publicly, Eagles players are saying all of the right things about Kelly right now. But what most of them really are thinking is, "What the hell does this guy know about coaching in the NFL?"

The recent track record of college coaches jumping to the NFL is lousy. Nick Saban was hired by the Dolphins in 2005 after winning a national championship at LSU, went 9-7, then 6-10, then scurried back to college, where he's won two more national titles at Alabama. And unlike Kelly, Saban had spent 6 years as an NFL assistant, including 4 as a defensive coordinator for Bill Belichick in Cleveland.

Bobby Petrino left Louisville to take the Falcons' head-coaching job in '07, got sick to his stomach after 13 games, only three of which his team won, and ran off to a place where they wear pigs on their heads and everybody's related to one another. And Petrino, like Saban, had NFL experience on his resumé, spending 3 years as an assistant with Jacksonville, including one as offensive coordinator.

The last college coach to get an NFL head-coaching job with no experience in the league was Mike Riley, who was hired by the Chargers in '99 and fired 3 years and only 14 wins later.

"It's going to be incumbent upon Chip and [general manager] Howie [Roseman] to bring in the type of players that fit best what he wants to do," NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said.

"In the meantime, he and his staff have to establish credibility early with the players that he has. And I think he can. I don't know him. But from looking at the tape, I think he does a great job of taking what he has and working with it.

"If a player thinks you can make him a better player, that's what it's all about. That's the buy-in. And I think he'll be able to do that."

While Kelly wouldn't have been my choice, I give Lurie credit for being ballsy enough to make a move like this.

It's even more ballsy than the move he made 14 years ago when he passed on then-Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Jim Haslett and hired a relatively unknown quarterbacks coach named Andy Reid.

"The game has changed so much," Lurie said. "The NFL borrows more from college now than college borrows from the NFL. Leadership is leadership. If you're a great leader of 18- to 21-year-olds, you have a good chance of being a great leader of 21- to 32-year-olds.

"The sample size [of college coaches jumping to the NFL] isn't big enough to really reach any conclusions. You could take the sample size of coordinators who haven't been a head coach anywhere and probably reach the same conclusion.

"Everybody is a leap of faith. With Chip [you know you're] getting an outstanding leader and thinker."

There no doubt are a lot of people out there who think this is just another case of the Eagles believing they are smarter than everybody else. I don't think that's it, though. Lurie will be the first to acknowledge that his gamble on Kelly could fail.

"I had a lot of confidence in Andy [when I hired him], but you didn't know until you proceeded," the Eagles owner said. "I would've told you that with all of the top candidates, some of whom had never been a head coach at any level, you'd worry about that.

"Somebody who's never coached in the NFL, you might worry about that. Somebody who's failed at another place as a head coach, you might worry about that.

"There's no obvious choice. You're making a risk-reward choice. You just hope you're making the best choice. And if you didn't make the best choice, then you're going to [eventually have to] find another head coach and you're going to get another chance to make a great decision."

[SunMo]

"Bobby Petrino left Louisville to take the Falcons' head-coaching job in '07, got sick to his stomach after 13 games, only three of which his team won, and ran off to a place where they wear pigs on their heads and everybody's related to one another."


that's awesome

[SunMo]

Howie Roseman: Chip Kelly's a 'Trend-Setter'
Posted by Sheil Kapadia on January 19, 2013 at 11:00 am | 0 Comments

As the Eagles' brass introduced their new head coach Thursday afternoon, they wanted to make one thing clear: Chip Kelly was not being hired for his offensive scheme.

Since Kelly's name first started to get linked to NFL head-coaching jobs, many have debated whether his spread-option attack would work at this level. But really, that is the wrong question.

It's true that the Patriots chatted with Kelly about implementing a one-word no-huddle attack to push tempo. And it's also true that quarterbacks like Robert Griffin III, Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson have had success running the option. But in the NFL, teams will adjust. Especially when they have a full offseason to look at the film and craft a plan.

Perhaps that's why Jeffrey Lurie, Howie Roseman and company emphasized that they believe Kelly's greatest strength will be his ability to figure out what's coming next.

"He's got an incredible way of thinking about things," Roseman said. "When we looked at this and studied people who were great – and we had a great head coach – there were people who were out front on the edge of things, and then people are starting to copy. What we learned very quickly, Chip was a trend-setter. The things people were doing, they were following him. He wasn't a disciple of anyone. People weren't going, 'Oh, Chip Kelly, he's an offshoot of this person or that person.' He was on the edge of it. And sometimes to find greatness, you've got to find the person who's on top of that, and that's what we're trying to find."

Of course, Kelly wasn't the only candidate the Eagles targeted. Lurie and Roseman raved about Gus Bradley, who eventually took the Jacksonville Jaguars job. They also had great things to say about Penn State's Bill O'Brien.

It had been 14 years since Lurie interviewed head-coaching candidates. This was an opportunity for him to pick the brains of some of the league's top candidates.

"There are so many intriguing philosophies out there, in terms of how to operate an NFL team, that we just learned a tremendous amount, that we will share with Chip as well," Lurie said. "There is a lot of innovative thought out there. I would have to say probably the most innovative thought on all these fronts was with Chip."

Kelly might turn out to be the wrong choice, but it's tough to find fault with how Lurie went about the process. He interviewed a variety of candidates – some from college, some current coordinators, some former NFL head coaches. He was looking for someone who had leadership and vision. And he eventually landed the guy who was at the top of his list.

He was also thinking long-term. Lurie's first coach, Ray Rhodes, lasted four years. His second coach, Andy Reid, lasted 14. Lurie was patient with Reid, although certainly, a lot of that had to do with Reid's success. With Kelly, Lurie's not going to demand a quick turnaround. Kelly signed a five-year deal, and there's no doubt he's going to implement changes across the board.

Lurie seems committed to giving him time to get everything in place.

"I really think you've got to have somebody very sharp and who sees ahead of the curve, not just what's happening right now," Lurie said. "And doesn't say, 'Because that team is doing something well, we're going to copy that team.' That's not what we were looking for. We were looking for somebody who is looking out 24 months, 36 months and saying, 'How do we want to be?' That's much more what we're looking for."

[Diomedes]

"Bobby Petrino left Louisville to take the Falcons' head-coaching job in '07, got sick to his stomach after 13 games, only three of which his team won, and ran off to a place where they wear pigs on their heads and everybody's related to one another."


that's awesome

Agreed, and I don't even know where he's talking about.  Wherever it is, farg those people.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Arkansas

[Diomedes]

Thanks.  I don't follow college football.  What's the pigs reference about?  The only football fans I know dress up as pigs are the hogettes in Landover, and I recently read that they were all retiring.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Because the school is the Razorbacks...and they, grown adults, walk around screaming SOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEYYYY

Petrino's introductory PC at Arkansas was embarrassing

[Sgt PSN]

i think domo pretty much nails it

The last college coach to get an NFL head-coaching job with no experience in the league was Mike Riley, who was hired by the Chargers in '99 and fired 3 years and only 14 wins later.

And one of those wins came against our beloved Eagles.

But hey, the Eagles hired Vermiel out of college and he did pretty ok. So all Chip needs to is find a bartender/substitute teacher to play special teams and the Eagles are pretty much invincible, right?

[Geowhizzer]

Because the school is the Razorbacks...and they, grown adults, walk around screaming SOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEYYYY

Petrino's introductory PC at Arkansas was embarrassing

You mean this one?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7x3x6QHlrA

[Sgt PSN]

Ah yes, the good ole Arkansas mating call.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Yep that's the one.

lol how awful

[QB Eagles]

The Eagles are definitely swinging for the fences with the hire. Of course it would have been safer to pick Arians or Whisenhunt but I doubt Eagles fans are looking for a 10-win ceiling kind of guy.

I'm fine with it. If he totally flames out in 2-3 years (like most head coaches do whether they were a college coach or an NFL coordinator), who gives a shtein. In fact that would be better than if he's here for 5 years with a mediocre to good team. At least they tried to hit the home run.

[ice grillin you]

why does chip kelly have such a high ceiling....i just dont get it....to me grabbing a guy who has never coached in the nfl is the opposite of swinging for the fences...swinging for the fences would have been convincing cowher to come out of the studio and coach again....or even taking a chance on gruden winning another superbowl....chip kelly is rolling the dice not swinging for the fences

[SD]

milliner is not a top ten talent...more like teens or low 20's but cb's always go above where they should...if jones isnt there and you have a good offer for the pick i trade back if im the eagles

Agreed and his stock has gone up since he plays for Bama and this is a zesty draft for CBs. They have a need at CB, so people are speculating.