Eagles

Chip Kelly, Still Kind of a Disaster!

By Kyle Scott

Published: Oct 7th, 2016 · 10:17 AM EDT

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The 49ers are 1-4. Blaine Gabbert is their quarterback. They at times look like a disorganized mess on offense. Chip Kelly is still running quirky read options that defenses easily snuff out. Other than that, the play is fine, Mrs. Lincoln.

A #longform Bleacher Report article yesterday said that, despite the 49ers’ struggles, Chip is not experiencing any of the backlash he experienced in Philly and the team is fully behind him and buying in to his madness. And yet, the 49ers are getting their asses kicked and here’s what Chip Kelly’s post-game press conference looked like last night:

“Sporadically,” was the key word the 49ers coach used when asked if the team has improved offensively through five games.

“There’s a couple drives that I thought we did a nice job on, but not enough to win a football game,” Kelly added.

“I don’t think we protected well enough. I don’t think we threw it well enough. I don’t think we – we had too many drops – too many interceptions. It’s our entire group.”

“I don’t think anybody played well on offense. Nobody did.”

“We’ve got to do a better job tackling.”

Just for case you has trouble reading, that is Chip Kelly blaming the execution and not the scheme. To be sure, the 49ers stink. Blaine Gabbert might be the worst quarterback to ever walk on the Earth (best looking, too). But defenses are still picking up on Kelly’s read options and handoffs – as mentioned here – with much success. Look at three examples from last night:

Does the third one – a read option – look familiar? Running back takes the ball, has no where to go, tries to sweep outside, is met by two defenders in the backfield. Yeah, things haven’t changed. And this is with a quarterback who rushed for 70 yards last night and posed some reasonable threat to keep the ball.

ESPN’s Damien Woody CRUSHED Kelly today. From NJ.com:

“I don’t think the problem is Blaine Gabbert or Colin Kaepernick,” ESPN NFL analyst Damien Woody said Thursday on ESPN Radio. “I think the problem is Chip Kelly. If you don’t have the personnel to run your system, good head coaches adapt the system to the personnel.”

The 49ers, currently ranked 31st in the league in time of possession — a tune that should sound familiar to Eagles fans who witnessed the just shy of three-year tenure of Kelly in Philadelphia — dropped to the Cardinals 33-21 at Levi’s Stadium on Thursday night football as Week 5 begins in the NFL.

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“People think that because of the past success that [Kaepernick] had with Jim Harbaugh, but coaches, players, they watch practice,” Woody said. “They know. If he was clearly better than Blaine Gabbert, he’d be playing. Right now it all comes down to the coach not knowing how to use his personnel than it does us sitting here arguing whether it should be Colin Kaepernick or Blaine Gabbert starting. Neither quarterback is good, in my mind.

“Chip ran the same system in Philly. He brought it here to San Francisco. It’s the same old, same old. The one bugaboo that was talked about in Philadelphia was time of possession. They were one of the worst teams in football with time of possession. You can’t win that way in the National Football League. In Oregon you can do that because you have better football players and better athletes, you can’t do that in the NFL. He goes to San Francisco and what’s going on? They’re 31st in time of possession.”

Admittedly, this was Chip’s problem in Philly. He stubbornly refused to run DeMarco Murray up the middle despite the fact that was his strength in Dallas (he’s doing it again in Tennessee).

What’s more, as we’ve seen already with Doug Pederson, time of possession (or snaps, if you prefer) does matter. It matters for the defense. Last night time of possession was fairly even, but sure enough, to the everlasting delight of my Cardinals stack on Draft Kings, the 49ers’ defense was gassed by the fourth quarter and allowed the Cardinals to run the ball down their throats to seal the game. I mean, LOOK AT THIS:

The 49ers’ drive before that – run, run, sack, punt – lasted 90 seconds IN REAL-TIME. Certainly, the personnel and David Johnson had something to do with the Cardinals’ drive, but the same old Chip Kelly is still experiencing the same old problems with a new team. WHAT KIND OF IDIOTS WANTED TO KEEP THIS GUY AROUND?