Eagles Must Make Major Changes

The Philadelphia Eagles have been run into the ground.

Three years into the Chip Kelly era, the Eagles have failed to win a single playoff game, and the team has only deteriorated as Kelly continues to shape the team in his flawed, distorted image.

For many reasons which I’ll get into more below, its clear that the Eagles are going nowhere under the direction of Kelly, and its time for Jeffrey Lurie to step in and do something about it.

Without further delay, I present my case for the Philadelphia Eagles to fire Chip Kelly.

Two Fraudulent 10-6 Seasons

When I hear people make a case for Chip Kelly to stay, usually the first thing his supporters point to is that he had two 10-6 seasons, which should give him the right to fix the mess he made this year.

But let’s examine those 10-6 seasons a little more closely.

In 2013, the Eagles started out 3-5 before finishing the season 7-1 to win the division and make the playoffs. However, the team was the beneficiary of a pitifully easy schedule. They were matched up with the likes of the Oakland Raiders, Detroit Lions, Aaron Rodgers-less Green Bay, Chicago Bears, Washington Redskins, and the Tony Romo-less Dallas Cowboys. The team certainly played well at the time, but upon looking back at the strength of the  schedule at the time, there’s no doubt the team had a lot going in their favor by being matched up against poor teams.

The 2014 team was the most hollow 10-6 group I’ve ever seen. Few people look beyond the surface of the 10 wins that the team had last season to see them for what they really were. Kelly’s offense struggled heavily at times last season as well. Many of the team’s wins early in the season were fueled by an unrealistic amount of special teams and defensive touchdowns that proved be the difference in games. Without some of these fortunate breaks, the Eagles could have easily been a seven-win team last season.

And despite a 9-3 start that year, Kelly’s team collapsed to a 1-3 finish in the month of December, with the only victory coming in a meaningless season finale with the Giants after the Birds had already been eliminated.

During both seasons, Kelly’s true colors were on display for all to see with his record against winning teams.

In both years combined, the Eagles went 4-8 against teams with records above .500, and again, one of those wins came against a Green Bay team that was without Aaron Rodgers.

When looking at “two 10-6 seasons”, you need to look deeper than the initial stat of 20 victories and recognize that those achievements are actually quite hollow.

Those 10-win campaigns have meant very little, as the coach himself saw fit to obliterate the core of his team that was responsible for helping him attain those wins.

The Gimmick Offense Has Been Figured Out

Its time to stop pretending that Chip Kelly is some kind of revolutionary football mind that is bringing a lot to the table.

Because the reality is that this offense just isn’t that good.

Throughout the season, we’ve constantly heard Eagles’ opponents comment on how predictable Kelly’s offense is. There just aren’t that many plays in Chip’s arsenal. Constantly running everything out of the shotgun puts a limit on how many things the offense can do.

The running backs struggled throughout the season to get things going in Kelly’s slow-developing running schemes, and Kelly even has his runners go from the shotgun when the team is in the goalline.

The other element that is troubling is that Kelly allows defenses to dictate to him what kind of plays he can run, rather than him being assertive with his play calling. Throughout the season, the Eagles have avoided trying to take shots down the field, and seem to run all of their plays within 15 yards.

Then there’s the fast-paced element of the offense, Kelly’s claim to fame. To this, I simply don’t see the merit to running an offense like this.

I think at times, if the Eagles were to mix in a drive or two where they run things at a breakneck speed, it could be to their benefit. Mixing in speed only in spots would maximize its effectiveness. With opponents being unable to anticipate when the Eagles would pick things up or slow things down, the team could get some really solid concepts going for them.

But to run things this way 100% of the time is just foolish, and an idea that’s been doomed to fail all along. NFL defensive coordinators always catch up to gimmicks. There’s a reason the Wild Cat died after a year or two. There’s a reason the read-option quarterbacks Robert Griffin and Colin Kaepernick have found their ways to the bench. And there’s a reason that this offense now struggles just to score more than 20 points a game.

They’re all gimmicks.

The Defensive Scheme Is Also Flawed

‘As if the offensive problems weren’t bad enough, the Eagles’ defense has been an even bigger joke.

Billy Davis a god-awful, clueless defensive coordinator.

Davis runs the most painfully vanilla defense I’ve ever seen. This defense doesn’t have any kind of aggressiveness to it, there’s rarely any quality in-game adjustments, and this coordinator seems to always call games scared.

Davis seems to make his first priority to avoid giving up the big play. As such, he rarely blitzes to avoid getting burned. He’s afraid to move guys from their standard positions, leading to scenarios like the Lions game where a rookie cornerback is left to fend for himself against Calvin Johnson.

And the saddest part here is that this defense still gives up the big play anyway.

How many times has Davis’ defense allowed teams to convert on third and longs?

What’s the point of paying Byron Maxwell like a shutdown corner if Davis isn’t even going to attempt to have him shadow top opposing wide receivers?

Davis’ defense has been serviceable at best during his three years in Philadelphia, but its still an underachieving unit considering some of the talent brought in here over the last few years.

Personnel Mistakes

Chip Kelly the coach has been an enormous problem.

But Chip Kelly the G.M. has been an even bigger disaster.

Kelly ran wild with his full control this year, and almost all of his major moves have blown up in his face.

Byron Maxwell was horribly overpaid, and has not been close to a shutdown corner.

Sam Bradford has produced mixed results, and looks average at best. Certainly not worthy of losing next year’s second-round pick.

DeMarco Murray? Let’s not even get started on DeMarco Murray.

Kelly dumped big money into the running back position, but didn’t protect that investment by adding talent to an aging offensive line. In fact, Kelly made the line worse by willingly releasing Evan Mathis.

Kelly also failed to re-sign Jeremy Maclin, leaving his offense without a dynamic outside playmaker. It forced him to use a first-round pick on Nelson Agholor, who has contributed all of 250 yards in his rookie season.

Chip also traded LeSean McCoy, and brought in linebacker Kiko Alonso. Alonso’s struggles have been well-documented, and he’s done nothing to make the defense better.

These moves individually are the type of transactions that can set a team back several years if they don’t work out. And here Kelly has made six major gaffes in just one off-season. I fear what he might do with another year of full control.

Draft Day Incompetence

Three draft picks have been invested in the first three round on wide receivers in the last two years, and the Eagles have nothing to show for it. Josh Huff is a decent kick returner, but can’t be counted on to be involved in the offense. Jordan Matthews has become the king of garbage time stats, and took significant steps back in his sophomore year. Nelson Agholor was a major disappointment.

Kelly has shown that he doesn’t understand how to properly assess a player’s value on draft day. Before he had full control, he had wanted to take Jordan Matthews in the first round, and Taylor Hart in the third. He had to be talked out of it by former General Manager Howie Roseman.

The Blowout Losses

The Eagles have been blown out four times in the last six games.

During all of these games, the Eagles still very much had something to play and fight for, but they were pushed aside and easily defeated by their opponents.

And its not like the Eagles were getting demolished by elite teams like the Arizona Cardinals every week. There were embarrassments at the hands of other pathetic franchises like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Detroit Lions. The Washington Redskins came to town and dismantled the Eagles in front of the Philadelphia fans with a division title on the line.

Its one thing to have a bad season, but when your program is getting its doors blown off by other losers in this league, it really doesn’t speak well for the validity of Kelly’s philosophies and long-term plan.

This Program’s Future Projects Grim

If Kelly were to return next year, it’d be a do-or-die season for the head coach.

And I don’t see how he can fix enough of this team’s problems in one off-season to make them good enough to compete again.

The bad contracts that Kelly handed out to guys like Byron Maxwell and DeMarco Murray have given the team little wiggle room to work with in the salary cap this winter.

If the team is truly committed to getting Sam Bradford to sign an extension, that’s going to destroy a good amount of that remaining cap space.

And then Kelly still has a long list of holes to plug. The wide receivers aren’t good enough, need more help. The offensive line needs help at multiple positions. The Eagles are going to have a lot of key defensive starters go to free agency, including Cedric Thornton, Nolan Carroll, Walter Thurmond, and Vinny Curry. If any of them leave, those positions become holes again as well.

And in addition to the limited salary cap room, Kelly is of course without his second-round pick, thanks to the Bradford trade.

Sure, he can create some more space by releasing veterans like Jason Peters, but once he releases any of his veterans he creates even more holes that he has to fill as well.

The bottom line here is that I don’t see the Eagles in a position to do enough to improve drastically this off-season, meaning that missing the playoffs for a third straight year is a real possibility, and the Chip Kelly era would just come to an end next year at this time.

So why put it off?

Especially with so many questions about Chip the coach and GM, and the fact that is his body of work through three years really isn’t all that impressive, would this team not just be better off pressing the reset button and starting fresh with a new coach?

If Jeffrey Lurie allows Kelly to remain in any capacity, he’ll have wasted the 2016 season before it begins, just as he wasted 2012 by hanging on to Andy Reid a year too late, and just as he wasted 1998 by giving Ray Rhodes one more shot.

It’s time for Lurie to be honest with himself and have to the foresight to know that he made a mistake. Its time from him to cut his losses, and make a new hire that actually has a chance to build something great in this league.

Follow Denny Basens on Twitter, @DennyBasens