Bye-Bye Chip: Thank You, Jeffrey Lurie

I was never a Chip Kelly fan, so I'm not shocked about the stories coming out of the NovaCare Complex. As amazing as it is, college coaches don't have an easy transition into the NFL, even the great ones. Chip was a very confident guy, and many fans took to that confidence, however I found it to be grounded in nothing. The truth was very cold on Chip Kelly- people thought he was a great coach, because people thought he was a great coach. People thought his style would work, that it was different, that it was innovative. Today, the truth is clear.

Yes, Chip Kelly had some early successes. His team won the division in his first season, and they went 10-6 in consecutive years. He started out his NFL career 19-9, and it seemed that he had proven people like me wrong. Then the last 13 months happened. He finished 1-3 last season, and is 7-12 since last Thanksgiving. He lost three in a row to Washington, and is an OT win against a Romo-less Dallas from losing three in a row to the Cowboys. They did beat the Patriots, without Gronk, this season, but have losses against the NFC's big boys in Carolina and Arizona, got manhandled last season by the Seahawks and Packers, and took a punishing loss in his rookie season to Denver. Chip did not fare well against the NFL's elite, but he was probably mostly done-in by his personnel decisions. He famously cut DeSean Jackson, but really felt the effects of that after letting Jeremy Maclin walk. He drafted Marcus Smith and Nelson Agholor. He traded LeSean McCoy for a stiff in Kiko Alonso. He signed Byron Maxwell and DeMarco Murray to big money contracts and then misused both on the way to underachieving seasons. He kept Riley Cooper around. He cut Evan Mathis. Yeah, Miles Austin happened too. Chip wanted to push out Howie Roseman, and he did, but he made the team worse with almost every move he made. Chip the GM has a mixed record, one that spans his first 28 games, and another his final 19. Chip, the football boss of the Eagles, has a terrible record that is one-sided. As a coach, I would have considered firing him, but maybe waited a little longer. As a GM, he had to go now.

And so the story goes. Jeffrey Lurie talked to Chip, and apparently told him he wanted to take away his control over personnel. Chip refused, and was fired. It ended up being a simple choice over insubordination, or philosophical disagreement, or whatever drove Lurie. Regardless, the situation was so bad within the Eagles organization that Kelly had to be "released" from his contract with five days until the final game of the season, a meaningless game at that. Lurie decided to do the deed immediately. I couldn't support him more.

Another off-season of Chip's arrogant bluster, his "i'm smarter than you" moves, would have destroyed this team for much longer than his bad moves already have. To be clear, I expect the Eagles of 2016 to be much worse, and I'm okay with that. Coming into a new coach with the expectation of a three year rebuild is fine by me. Allowing that coach to have complete control over the draft and free agency will keep us from digging a deeper hole under a coach who was clearly overmatched running an NFL franchise. Yes, it will cost money to release Chip, but it's worth every penny. I did not want to watch him put us through another over-hyped soap-opera.

My preference is a defensive-minded NFL assistant coach. No more gimmicks, no more college guys, give me a nuts-and-bolts football coach that stresses blocking and tackling, disciplined football, and uses his players right. I had enough of the last three seasons. Enough with the drama. Let's get an NFL coach in here and start to build a real winner.

Chip Kelly, Go Back to College (Or Not)

The Eagles season is over. I don't care if they win or lose next Sunday, I might not even watch. Why bother? They are 6-9, and they aren't even a fun 6-9 team that you enjoy. They just stink. They aren't winning the division. They aren't a playoff team. They aren't even a .500 team. Winning Sunday has no value. In fact, let's be honest, beating New England and Buffalo did nothing but hurt draft position. This team has been done since they imploded against Miami.

The Philadelphia Eagles gave Chip Kelly complete control over the football operations of the team last off-season. He proceeded to re-make the football team in his image. Out went McCoy, Foles, Maclin, Mathis, Herremans, and others. In came Maxwell, Alonso, Bradford, Thurmond, and others. The team went from ten wins to six so far. They were not a Super Bowl contender in 2014 as a ten win team, and now they aren't a .500 team. The road forward got pretty long.

I personally want the Eagles to fire Chip Kelly and move on. I think his "system" has been figured out, and that he puts far too much confidence in his scheme. I think he was never the right hire in the first place, and that we've now seen three seasons without a playoff win. I think it's time we stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole. The team is going to need an actual rebuild, and that should start under someone with a longer leash, with a fresh perspective. I'd like to end this experiment now, and try something else.

I don't think that's going to happen though. My perspective on Chip Kelly is not that of Jeffrey Lurie, a man who has never been quick on the trigger with his coaches. I believe Chip will be back, at least for one more season. It doesn't matter if he changes coordinators or not, though he might do it to appease Lurie, the team will remain Chip's team.

The bottom line is that I'd like to see Chip Kelly leave Philadelphia. He won't though, for now. With that said, I'll hold out hope another week or so, and maybe we'll all get lucky.

Is Chip Kelly a Racist? Re-Visiting LeSean McCoy's Comments as he Returns

In case you didn't circle it on your calendar, it's LeSean McCoy week in Philadelphia. He's coming back to Philadelphia with his Bills, in a game that now matters to both teams. The 6-6 Bills are one game out of the AFC Wild Card. The 5-7 Eagles are at most one game out of the NFC East. Pass the popcorn- you knew this would be a big week.

Chip Kelly traded LeSean McCoy to "go in a different direction." People have speculated whether he meant "a north-south runner," which seems unlikely given his use of DeMarco Murray, or a different type of personality, which would seem to be more likely, given the fireworks that came after McCoy was cut. Kelly won't go back into it, so we won't know, but we do know there is some bad blood now. McCoy went after Chip Kelly in the press afterwards, even going so far as to call him a racist. He also didn't take his call, seeking to clear the air.

So is Kelly a racist? Was McCoy out of line. Let me start by stating the obvious- I don't know. I've never met Chip Kelly a day in my life. McCoy did, and he says he's a racist. McCoy also just got traded away from the only team he ever knew. Other players ran to Kelly's defense. They also are not objective though, given that he's their boss. Let's establish a few things though-

• Leave out whether you think Kelly is a good or bad GM and coach. I think he's obviously not that great, but that has nothing to do with McCoy's comments.
• Leave out whether or not you like LeSean McCoy, whether you are mad at him for having a party in the off-season (get over it, no harm in that), his "baby mama drama" on Twitter (none of our business), or any other incident involving him. He's never been accused of being bad in the locker room, breaking the law, or doing anything else objectively wrong, nor would that have any baring on what he's saying here anyway.
• Yes, Chip Kelly employs other African-American men on his team, and no that doesn't prove anything. That's the "I have black friends" of pro-sports. It's in his interests to sign the best players, regardless of race, and to win games. That he does so proves nothing about his day-to-day demeanor, or whether or not he's racist.
• Chip Kelly has never said or done anything in the public space that is racist. All we have to go on is the word of others, none of whom are objective at all. 
• Chip, at best, mishandled both the McCoy and Jackson situations, on a personal level. Yes, he called McCoy, after he had traded him, "anonymous" sources talked about his flaws as a back, and McCoy had called him a racist. The Jackson story was even uglier, with accusations "anonymously" flying about Jackson being in street gangs and being involved in murders. This is not how well-run organizations cut ties with players.

Given all of those facts, it's not obvious or clear to me either way. Some people dismiss McCoy's accusations out of hand. There are plenty of reasons for that- dismissal of McCoy and Jackson themselves, fan allegiances, and a desire to not see Kelly labeled with one of the worst terms in our society. I don't dismiss the accusations out of hand, because I have no clear way to. I also don't know Kelly at all to say he's a racist (though being accused by Stephen A. Smith probably helps him, because it's Stephen).

Given that I don't know either way, I don't particularly care about this debate. As far as the circumstances that jettisoned McCoy from Philadelphia, I tend to side with him- it was a bad, stupid, disrespectful trade. Even so, it really doesn't matter a whole lot now. I view McCoy favorably, for his on the field heart and hustle that made him a great player in Philadelphia. Obviously he's going to get booed by a fan-base that will be back on the Kelly bandwagon after beating New England, which is fine I guess. In the end, the important part of Sunday will be who wins or loses the game.