Chip Kelly’s Offensive System Produces High Turnover Rate

Sam Bradford and the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense have produced a high rate of turnovers throughout the season.

After committing four more giveaways on Monday night against the Giants, the Eagles are currently second in the league with 14 turnovers, trailing only the Detroit Lions who have 18. The Birds are currently averaging more than two turnovers per game, and while much of the fault lies on the shoulders of the careless play of Bradford, when you look a little deeper at the situation, a case can be made that Chip Kelly’s offensive system is conducive to generating turnovers just as quickly as it generates yards and points.

In 2014, the Eagles led the league in turnovers with 36. Nick Foles and Mark Sanchez combined to produce 21 interceptions, and the Birds also lost 14 fumbles.

The Eagles only had 18 giveaways in 2013, however 14 of them came in the first eight weeks of the season (team was 3-5 in that stretch) before Nick Foles went on his magical 27-2 touchdown/interception ratio run in the second half of the season. Had Foles never taken over as the starting quarterback, the offense would have been on place for 28 turnovers that year as well.

With 14 turnovers already on the board for the 2015 season, the Eagles are on pace for more than 37 turnovers this year, which would exceed last year’s league-leading total.

Throughout Chip Kelly’s tenure in Philadelphia, the players have changed, but the system has stayed the same. And the system, for all of its high yardage and point totals, has also produced some very dark elements as well. The high number of turnovers are the most damning, but there other significant issues as well, such as the constant three-and-outs and the heavy workload it places on the team’s defense.

But the focus for today is the turnover problem.

Whether its been Michael Vick, Nick Foles, Mark Sanchez, or Sam Bradford, Kelly’s quarterbacks have turned the ball over frequently. Skill position players have been prone to fumbling. Jordan Matthews lost one on Monday, and DeMarco Murray could have easily lost another (and set the Giants up with a short field). Even a quality center like Jason Kelce has been guilty of a number of botched snaps over the last three years (including one on Monday) that have led to turnovers, or at the very least killed drives.

I think that the way this offense is designed, with such an emphasis placed on speed, tempo, and getting up to the line and snapping the ball as soon as possible, it makes the players running it more likely to make mistakes during a game.

The NFL is already an extremely intense, fast-paced level of play to begin with. And with the rate of speed that Kelly likes to run his offense at, his goal is to overwhelm opposing defenses by creating confusing and taking away their time to adjust. However, there I times where I believe the same problems that Kelly is trying to create for the defense actually come back to impact his offense.

Just like the defenders, the players on offense don’t have time to adjust or compose themselves after a play. They’ve got to worry about getting back to the line as soon as possible to run the next play. But with the rate of speed at which things are transpiring, there have been plenty of times in which not all of Kelly’s players are on the same page with each other. The quarterback may expect his receivers to go one way, while the wideouts believe a completely different thing is expected of them.

Case and point goes back to Monday’s game on one of Bradford’s interceptions. Bradford targeted Riley Cooper on a deep ball down the field, however there was some kind of miscommunication, as Cooper didn’t make a break downfield and the result was an easy interception for the Giants. Similar plays, mental mistakes, or lapses in judgement by the players have occurred throughout Kelly’s time with the Eagles.

The other example I’ll point to is Jason Kelce. Kelce snapped the ball too early again on Monday, firing the ball right by Bradford who was not expecting a snap at all. A similar thing occurred earlier this year in a loss to the Cowboys, and Kelce has had several plays similar in the previous two seasons. Again, when I think about the rate of speed that this offense runs at, and the priority that is placed on running as many plays as quickly as possible, the philosophy of speed could be working in Kelce’s head and contributing to making him a little trigger happy at times in order to get the next play going.

Kelly and the Eagles have talked for over a year now about cleaning up the turnovers, but we’ve seen no sign of the rate coming down. The Eagles have been able to get away with the giveaways in the last couple of weeks, but sooner or later the mistakes are going to come back and be the undoing of this team, just as they were a year ago.

Follow Denny Basens on Twitter, @DennyBasens