Chip_kellyYes, just in case the first half last night wasn’t fast enough for you, here’s some good news: Chip Kelly thinks the Eagles can go faster and that other teams may want to start running… like, now, because “if they are going to wait until the week of to get some extra sprints in, it’s probably too late.”

Chip on the offense’s pace: “I felt it was slow, to be honest.”

He said that the Eagles could’ve gotten balls to officials quicker and that their playcalling needs to be better when things do slow down.

My take, because, obviously, I am qualified to debate such things with a football mastermind who rode me into euphoric submission last night: Yes and no. The Eagles’ offense was extraordinarily up-tempo in the first half, running plays about every 15 seconds once things got going. It’s hard to imagine going much quicker than that by the time the ball gets spotted and the teams line up. But there are many things – penalties, injuries, two-minute warnings and quarters ending – that can slow it down. And once the Eagles got out of what were presumably scripted plays, things did slow down considerably. They seemed to struggle with keeping up both the intensity and the speed. In other words: once they got rolling, it was go-go-go, but when the game’s natural factors came into play, things got a bit more conventional. That will be the challenge going forward– not the top speed, but maintaining the pace, if that’s what Kelly wants to do.