“Ding, dong! That bastard is gone!!”
“Won’t He (Jesus) do it?!”
“The Laaaawwwwd done made a way!”
Those were among the reactions of Eagles fans when the Internet “broke” upon the news of Chip Kelly’s firing last night. Hell, y’all should have seen how epic #EaglesTwitter was during that time.
Look, I get that he was good his first two seasons. Kelly finished 10-6 both of those season, the first of which he made the playoffs. I also know that he didn’t even get a chance to finish his third season, which ended at a much worse 6-9.
Some people from ESPN’s “First Take” and beyond believe that Kelly should have been given at least one more season to see if his system would take root. Would Kelly do better one more year with him having control over personnel?
Kelly learned the hard lesson – as did Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban – about running “systems” in the NFL as opposed to college football. In the NFL, a coach needs good players to make his system work.
Kelly jettisoned DeSean Jackson, LeSean McCoy, didn’t re-sign Jeremy Maclin, and cut his best offensive linemen while the player was holding out during training camp.
And what did he get in return? The ever-so-fragile Sam Bradford, an overrated Byron Maxwell, the back-stabbing/misued DeMarco Murray, the oft-injured Kiko Alonso. In other words, Kelly’s Eagles got lots of lumps of coal for the gifts he gave away.
(One more side note: Kelly chose to keep the immortally racist Riley Cooper.)
If bad personnel moves were not bad enough, Kelly just did not want to get along with others.
Kelly didn’t see eye-to-eye with Jackson and McCoy, his two best players, and sent them packing. He didn’t relate to his players, and nor did he care to. He hunkered down and reportedly isolated himself from players and other members of the front office. Keep in mind that he won a power struggle with former personnel guru Howie Roseman over personnel moves. (By the way, Roseman must be somewhere laughing his ass off right now. Talk about gangsta…)
So moral of the story is this: if you are a nice person, people would be able to put up with your incompetence. Maybe Kelly will learn this lesson with the Tennessee Titans (I’m just sayin’…)?
Categories: NFL, sports story
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