Your Chip Kelly Reader
Some morning reading to help you understand what happened last night:
Philly’s Missed Opportunity by Peter King – “Jeffrey Lurie has been the poster boy for patience in the NFL. He kept an ill-equipped Ray Rhodes after a four-win season, and he kept Andy Reid for 14 years, and Reid never won a Super Bowl. Lurie is a patient man. But he wasn’t patient with Kelly. Lurie knew something.”
Chip Kelly needs to self-evaluate after shocking dismissal from Eagles by Jason La Canfora – “Lurie didn’t go into his meeting with Kelly with the intention of firing him, I’m told. More, it was to take his temperature and continue to feel him out and gather information that would lead to his ultimate decision on what to do with his organization in 2016. Obviously, things went sideways and what Kelly had to say didn’t mesh with the owner’s vision, and Lurie became convinced that for as radical as a Week 17 firing might be perceived, it was time to do it. The fact that Kelly didn’t seem inclined to scratch and claw to remain in his perch, sources said, did him no favors as well.”
Why the Chip Kelly experiment didn’t work by Sheil Kapadia – Sheil reaches back into his years of covering Chip locally to see what went wrong, including “showing little flexibility” and “lack of understanding value.”
Understanding the Chip Kelly Move by Tim McManus – “Lurie does not take a move like this lightly and examined it from every angle before deciding that the best course of action was to move on from Kelly. It is fair to say that the former Oregon head coach did not endear himself to many inside NovaCare. Key veterans had issues with his methodologies and, as evidenced by several ex-Eagles’ comments on their way out the door, there was at a minimum a disconnect between the head coach and some of his pupils.”
How do you explain Chip Kelly’s firing by Eagles? That’s easy: Howie Roseman ‘got him’ by Mark Eckel – Includes this confidence-inspiring gem: “”Howie got him,” the executive said. “He won. It took him some time, but he got to the owner, and he won. That’s just amazing. What is Lurie thinking? That place is just out of control.'”
Chip Kelly fired after Eagles moves lead to missed playoffs by Rob Maaddi – “A person familiar with the decision to fire Kelly told The Associated Press Tuesday night that the team didn’t consider only stripping him of personnel control, opting to part with him entirely.”
Ian Rapoport’s Twitter Timeline by Ian Rapppppopopoport – Mainly this one.
Eagles Fire Chip Kelly by Les Bowen – Wherein Les tries to get poetic about knocking on Chip Kelly’s door: “The Familiar figure, phone pressed to his ear, briefly appeared a room away, through the double-glazed glass of the front door. He quickly ducked out of sight when the reporter obeyed the neatly lettered note covering the nonworking doorbell on the spacious front porch of Chip Kelly’s Haddonfield home, and knocked. A yellow labish-looking dog trotted through the tiled hallway up to the door and barked. A second knock brought Jill Cohen, Kelly’s companion since their days working at the University of Oregon. She was smiling and gracious as she opened the door and said the coach whose firing the Eagles had announced by email about 45 minutes earlier didn’t want to say anything Tuesday night. A few moments of small talk ensued – the dog’s name turned out to be Henry – but Kelly didn’t reconsider, and the reporter thanked Cohen and walked back to his car.”
Chip Kelly’s failures leave Jeffrey Lurie with pretty big mess on his hands by Glen Macnow – Macnow reminds us that “Kelly treated his players like replaceable commodities which, in truth, they are in the corporate NFL. But … Kelly had no inclination for any of that human touch.”
Jeffrey Lurie, Eagles need legitimate general manager by Ashley Fox – “Lurie needs a general manager who has a strategic philosophy on how to build a team through the draft, how to run a scouting department, how to work in conjunction with a head coach and how to use trades and free agency only as a means to plug holes and not as a way to build the nucleus of the roster. He needs a general manager who won’t be divisive or disappear when things get rocky, who won’t whisper in the owner’s ear during games that the coach isn’t getting it done.”
Blame the media for propping up Chip Kelly by Buzz Bissinger – Humility as always from Bissinger: “‘I’m two-for-two,’ Bissinger told Philly.com after it was announced that Kelly has lost his job as Eagles head coach. ‘I was right about Nick Foles, and I was right about Chip Kelly.'”
And finally, an all-time classic to just make you mad …
Philadelphia Eagles’ hire of Chip Kelly could be NFL’s worst ever by Heath Evans, in 2013 – You know, Heath’s still not right.
How Chip Kelly the Eagles GM got Chip Kelly the Eagles coach fired by Charles Robinson – “Kelly painted a target on his own back. And following a disjointed 6-9 season that saw a roster rife with chemistry problems, Kelly’s inability to live up to the campaign promises of his power grab cost him his job. That’s why he was fired on Tuesday. Because his appetite for power and control expanded to an unsustainable level – and the Eagles collapsed beneath it.”