Chip Kelly, in year one of his NFL experiment, showed everyone that his offensive genius does translate from college football to the NFL. Look what he did with QB Nick Foles: his mastermind with the Oregon Ducks carried over to the Philadelphia Eagles. Unfortunately, the Eagles didn’t do a whole lot this offseason other than let DeSean Jackson, their best receiver, go and make a back-up QB trade with the New York Jets.
Still, another year under Chip Kelly in the new system raises the stakes and expectations that much higher.
Said NBC’s Cris Collinsworth on media conference call:
“I do know I thought Chip Kelly had some fresh and original ideas. And I see a lot of it being copied around the league now. Nick Foles was sensational last year. You can’t say anything else. And you would think after a year of starting that he might get a little bit better.
“I think they have the best running back in the league in LeSean McCoy, certainly one of the best tackles in football in Jason Peters, and a defense that I thought was learning a new system and figuring out how they were going to grow into it.”
The NFC is much tougher than the AFC, so the Eagles have their work cut out for them. Said Collinsworth:
“the Philadelphia Eagles spread the field, they put many times they have somebody that will go wide and simply sit at the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball, there’s two people down the field, there’s somebody down the middle of the field or LeSean McCoy is coming out of the back field and they’re creating space for their great players to make plays in the open field.”
“I think it was something that this team kind of really grasped and understood the possibilities of this offense about halfway through the year last year. If I’m not mistaken, it didn’t start a ball of fire and the way that they finished the season and in a close loss in the playoffs and all that kind you have stuff, you just look at teams that are, who has the potential to be even better next year, to take the next step. And to me, anybody that has a second year coach and somebody who is a second year coach like Chip Kelly, you know, I can sign up for that.”
Said AL MICHAELS on Chip Kelly: “I was thinking about Chip Kelly recently and just going back in recent history in the NFL, Bill Walsh had been an assistant, goes to Stanford, comes in with San Francisco and really changes a lot of things.
And then in the ’90s when Mike Shanahan took over in Denver, won the two Super Bowls and he’s being called a mastermind. And then Mike Martz takes over in St. Louis with Dick Vermeil and he’s kind of a mad scientist.
These guys come in, I mean it comes and it goes, but I see Kelly as maybe the next guy down the line here who is going to change a bunch of things and make it very, very interesting.
One thing about Philadelphia is they’re going to be one of the best teams to watch in the league. I don’t know what the record is going to be, but they’re going to be one of the most fun to watch.”
Paul M. Banks owns and operates The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports, Yahoo! and the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world and been featured in hundreds of media outlets including NFL Network, Fox Sports 1 and ESPN2. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)