Former Eagles head coach Buddy Ryan used to say he could care less about the media. “They can’t hurt you if you win, and they can’t help you if you lose”, said with a smile. I think Chip Kelly has the same mindset as Ryan because he doesn’t make talking to the media a focal point of his job, but when he does talk he doesn’t mince words.
He talked to Comcast Sportsnet recently about the team’s quarterback situation and he came totally clean. Kelly gave us the good and the bad.
“You have to make educated decisions based on the information that you have and sometimes you’re right, and sometimes you’re wrong,” Kelly told Derrick Gunn of Comcast Sportsnet. “But I think the one thing everybody’s got to know is we’re going to continue to try to make this thing a championship operation and that’s what this deal is all about.”
Kelly admits in the first sentence “sometimes you’re right and sometimes you’re wrong”. He doesn’t know what the future holds, but the moves he’s decided to make are in his best estimation from the information he has gathered, the correction decisions. I think that’s being very transparent and honest.
Next he talks about building “a championship operation”, which is another way of saying “winning a Super Bowl”. Kelly is smart enough to know he’s not here to win 10 games and go to the playoffs. If Jeffrey Lurie had wanted to continue to keep doing that he would have held onto Andy Reid. Reid was very effective in winning 10 games and going to the playoffs. What he couldn’t do was lead the Birds to the Super Bowl and win it.
Kelly isn’t here to win 10 games and go to the playoffs. Getting to the playoffs is just the start of his job. Getting it done in the playoffs is what it’s all about and that includes winning a Super Bowl.
Nearly all Eagles fans say they don’t want to just have a good team that makes the playoffs each year, they want to win a Super Bowl title and nothing else will suffice. After listening to him and thinking back about all the moves that he has made this off season, Chip Kelly is definitely trying to build a Super Bowl Championship team, right now.
“Ten wins … has it been fun that we took over a 4-12 team that has won 20 games in the past two years? We went from 4-12 to 20-12, but we still haven’t won a playoff game and we understand that. We’ve got to get better and we’re always going to strive … the one thing I can promise is that we’re not going to just sit there and hopefully in a couple of years we’re going to build this thing. We’re not waiting for the draft of 2017 to turn this thing around.”
Obviously after the 2014 season, Kelly and his staff got together and talked about what they could do to get better and become a Super Bowl Championship football team. They probably started out talking about the current Super Bowl contenders and it eventually turned into a discussion of the league’s top quarterbacks and how important a role they play in building a title team. It’s still on Kelly’s mind.
“New England, Pittsburgh, Green Bay — [Tom] Brady, [Ben] Roethlisberger, [Aaron] Rodgers. It all starts with the quarterback,” Kelly said.
“We’ve got to build it around them (team’s quarterbacks), but when you look at all the winning organizations … if you want to play with the odds as we want to play, it’s got to be with a quarterback situation and then the only way you’re going to get a quarterback is you got to be really not very good so you finish in the top 1-2 in the draft. If we’re not very good and we finish with the top 1-2 in the draft, I don’t think I’m going to be here, so we better find another way to find a quarterback. And that’s what we did with Sam.”
It wasn’t long after that discussion when Kelly and the Eagles came to the conclusion that they weren’t willing to hitch their wagon to Nick Foles, so it meant making some type of trade. It meant finding a way to acquire the services of the most valuable entity in the National Football League, which is a “Franchise Quarterback”.
They decided that the Sam Bradford for Foles trade was the deal worth doing, then they continued trying to assemble a Championship caliber team. That process starts with finding a possible “Franchise Quarterback”. It was like buying a real estate property that had the potential to be very valuable, then putting money into it to recapture its value.
Chip makes a good point there. He can’t tank the season like Sam Hinkie of the 76ers and keep his job. They had to find a way to get a top flight quarterback, so the Birds put together the package to get Bradford.
They also put a running game around him by adding DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews after trading away LeSean McCoy. An outstanding running game is great protection for an recovering quarterback, who is trying to recover from an injury and regain his confidence.
They’re going to have Bradford lining up behind the same offensive line that was amongst the best in the league in 2013. They didn’t add to the depth behind that first team offensive line, so we all hope they stay healthy.
The Birds also acquired a talented young receiver, Nelson Agholor, in the first round of the NFL Draft. Kelly and company are hoping the combination of Agholor, second-year wide outs Jordan Matthews and Josh Huff, veteran Riley Cooper, tight ends Brent Celek and Zach Ertz, playmaking third down back Darren Sproles, Murray and Mathews, and the rest of the team’s receivers supply targets for Bradford to target.
They’ve strengthened the defense by trading for Kiko Alonso, signing Byron Maxwell and drafting Eric Rowe and the other young secondary personnel. The defense will be better, but will Bradford be able to take the offense to another level.
“We’re going to go out and compete as hard as we can this current season”, Kelly said. “We have a bunch of guys who are working extremely hard of doing that right now and we’re excited to see where it leads us. But … we won 20 games, it’s outstanding, but we’ve got to get over that hump, we’ve got to keep moving, we’ve got to get into the playoffs, we’ve got to make some hay in the playoffs.”
Yes, that’s it Chip. Make some hay in the playoffs. Hopefully he and his staff are proven right with their evaluations.
I believe the Eagles are playing a more Difficult schedule and will have some
Physical Defenses and some very good Front 7’s in the Jets,Bills,Dolphins, Pats, Skins, Cardinals, Panthers who will all gear up to Stop the Run and put the Game on right arms of Bradford or Sanchez….
10 W’s will be very difficult to achieve in 2015 with 8-9-10 New Starters out of the 22 Positional Starting Players and it will take halva season to start jelling as a Unit
Chip is saying to himself I had massive turnover every year in college. Chip is saying how many player knew my system year 1 and year 2? Chip is saying damn near every offensive player had career years under my watch. Chip is saying this year will be no different. Chip is saying if Nick Foles and Mark Sanchez learned this offense respectively with not half the amount of talent as Bradford and thrived how in the world won Bradford succeed.. Chip is saying first Djax, then Macllin someone this year will definetly catch a lot of balls and have a lot of yards the machine never stops. Finally Chip says I have made avg RBs dating back to college look like Jim Brown why in the world would I think that stops with the reining rushing champ.