The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I haven't had a strong feeling one way or the other with regard to Chip Kelly during his tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles. When he was first hired, I admit to being quite curious how his style of offense would transfer to the NFL, but at the same time, didn't firmly believe one way or the other on the matter. This curiosity was partly due to the talent and speed he would coach on the Eagles offense. Let's not forget, when Kelly first took over, the Philadelphia Eagles had: Michael Vick at quarterback, LeSean McCoy at tailback, as well as DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin at receiver. The team was fun, fast, and exciting in Kelly's first season there. Even when Vick went down with an injury, Nick Foles filled in admirably, playing so well he remained the team's starter for the remainder of the season. The Eagles went on to win the NFC East with a 10-6 record, only to lose in the 1st round of the playoffs. To the surprise of many, speedster DeSean Jackson was re...

Many analysts have, until today, praised Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly's off-season moves and strategy. First, the Eagles traded tailback LeSean McCoy to Buffalo for linebacker Kiko Alonso. A number of ESPN analysts seemed fine with this move, saying McCoy may have been on the decline in his productivity, and Alonso, when healthy, could help the Eagles' rather mediocre defense. Philadelphia then signed former Seattle cornerback Byron Maxwell, resigned quarterback Mark Sanchez, and lost out on resigning wideout Jeremy Maclin, just a year after they parted ways with DeSean Jackson. Philly also decided to sign 32-year-old former San Francisco running back Frank Gore to help replace the younger McCoy. Rumors have it that quarterback Nick Foles could potentially be traded (to the Jets?) and that the Eagles are doing everything they can to try and nab Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota in the draft. While I can understand Chip Kelly's desire to work with the former O...

It seems that much of the talk this week surrounding the NFL has been with regard to coaches. So, I thought I'd put in my two cents on the hot topics of the week: 1) Is Bill Belichick and Tom Brady's successful run over? After the New England Patriots were dominated on Monday night against the Kansas City Chiefs, falling 41-14, which dropped them to 2-2 on the season, I can't tell you how many times analysts asked the question, "Is that it?" My response? Let's not jump the gun quite yet. While it's true that the Patriots have looked like anything but their old selves this season, they do play in the AFC (L)East and are currently tied for the division lead, alongside Buffalo and Miami. To start the year last season, while New England was 2-0, they had beaten the Buffalo Bills (who went on to be 6-10) and the New York Jets (8-8) by the combined score of 36-31 (average of 18.0 - 15.5), and many people were asking, "Is that it for Tom Brady and the...

While Michael Vick had a great start to the season, which his pre-season performances which earned him the starting quarterback job under first-year head coach Chip Kelly, and his grand showings against Washington and San Diego to start the regular season, the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback has been hampered with a hamstring injury which has given back-up Nick Foles an opportunity to show his progression as an NFL quarterback, and outside of a very poor showing against the Dallas Cowboys, the young slinger has shined. With Foles at quarterback, the team has reeled off three consecutive wins to improve them to 6-5 and tie them atop the NFC East with Dallas. With Vick's hamstring being close to 100% again, there was some talk among sports-writers and analysts on what Kelly was going to do at quarterback. Well, it appears as if Vick is making that decision a whole lot easier for the first-year head coach. Talking on WIP-94.1 FM late last week, Vick said this regarding the current s...

With the Philadelphia Eagles winning back-to-back games and scoring an impressive 76 points in that stretch under the guidance of Nick Foles, it's going to be awfully difficult for head coach Chip Kelly to replace Foles as the team's starter, no matter how healthy Michael Vick is. My guess is Kelly will rest Vick for the team's next game against Washington before evaluating things further over the team's bye week. If Foles plays well again and the team wins, I have to believe Kelly will stick with the young quarterback after the bye week. However, even if that's the case, I think it would be a shame for Kelly to not utilize a healthy Vick's talents. In saying that, so long as Foles continues to play well and Vick is healthy, I feel Chip Kelly may want to think about going the unconventional route of having a dual-quarterback system. I'm almost never in favor of such a system, especially at the pro level, but if there's anything most people can agree on...

Whenever something new gets brought about in any field, it seems that the skeptics are just waiting for that moment it fails. It doesn't matter if the idea, strategy, or product had been successful fourteen consecutive times prior to that very moment, if it fails on attempt #15, the skeptics will shout in unison, "Ah-ha! See? I told you so!" This seems to be the case with Yahoo sports-writer Eric Adelson, who, in light of the Philadelphia Eagles losing to the Dallas Cowboys 17-3 yesterday, wrote an article, titled, "Chip Kelly's warp speed attack doesn't look so revolutionary anymore in the NFL." He starts his article with: "So about that Chip Kelly revolution..." After bashing the Eagles, Adelson then lightens up and says this: "Kelly deserves to bring in more talent and make his way work, but this isn't Oregon anymore." Okay, he didn't lighten up a great deal. The skepticism is still well in tact. Toward the end of ...

After Chip Kelly's successful debut, where his Philadelphia Eagles defeated last year's NFC East Champion Washington Redskins in this nation's capital on Monday Night Football by the final score of 33-27, I was surprised to hear many ESPN talking heads like Michael Wilbon and Bill Plaschke compare the Eagles coach to Steve Spurrier, who coached the Redskins in the 2002 and 2003 seasons. Their reasoning centered around the hype surrounding both coaches coming out of college, their exciting style of football, the success both had early in their first seasons, and how when teams adjusted, they either did or will likely fail at this level. The two (and others) even mentioned that the second half of the Monday night game depicted just this point. Since the Eagles led 26-7 at halftime and 33-7 early in the third quarter, only to allow 20 consecutive points to win by the final of 33-27, this obviously showcased that Chip Kelly's offense won't succeed long-term and that lik...

Following the Philadelphia Eagles' 31-24 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars last night in the team's third preseason game, many Philly sports-writers were quick to label starting quarterback Michael Vick as "shaky," all the while praising the play of backup quarterback Nick Foles. While Foles was very efficient in the second half of last night's game and has been for most of the preseason, I'm still slightly perplexed on the myriad of such articles which were published by Philadelphia writers either last night or this morning. Vick wasn't as sharp in last night's game as he had been in the team's first two preseason games. He completed 15 of 23 pass attempts (65.2%) for 184 yards (8.0 ypa and 12.3 ypc), with 1 touchdown pass and 1 interception. In his defense, the interception was on a pass Vick was trying to throw away while getting hit. However, he held onto the ball too long and would have avoided the pick if he had tossed the ball out-of-...

As I called on June 6th, the Philadelphia Eagles just named Michael Vick as their starting quarterback heading into the 2013-2014 season. This is even less of a surprise for me given Vick's play in the pres-season. The veteran Pro Bowl quarterback has completed 13 of 15 pass attempts for 199 yards, and a touchdown (along with one end-of-the-half hail mary interception) in the Eagles' two pre-season games to this point. That's a completion percentage of 86.7% and his yards per pass attempt has been 13.3 - almost twice that of Nick Foles. Foles, to his credit, has been quite efficient in the pre-season. However, he lacks Vick's mobility and hasn't proven himself as an intermediate- to deep-route passer as Vick has. Foles, while efficient, has been been very much the dink and dunk passer and will need to improve on his intermediate and deep routes if he wants to be a full-time starter in this league. Third-stringer Matt Barkley has already shown a good deal of improv...

ESPN football analyst Christ Mortensen earlier reported that NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino told the Wall Street Journal the following with regard to the fast-paced offense Philadelphia Eagles' new head coach Chip Kelly plans to run with his team: "We have to make sure teams understand that they don't control the tempo, our officials do. We're going through our normal ball mechanics, we aren't going to rush [unless] it's in the two minute drill." That makes sense, because that's what fans are really wanting to see are officials holding up the tempo of a game over a new style of offense which attempts to speed things up a bit. I think what Blandino is really saying is this: "Look - some of our refs are in good shape, but let's face it - they're not in near as good of shape as NFL players like LeSean McCoy, Michael Vick, and DeSean Jackson. While Chip Kelly may want to run his offense at a speed not ever seen before,...

The Oregon Ducks football team, who was coached by Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly before this coming season, was hit with a light sanction for a recruiting violation under then coach Kelly. This wasn't a very harsh penalty. This was to the death penalty (in college football) what a paper-cut is to a gun homicide. Sure, it might sting for a little bit, but it doesn't completely end a person's life, or a program in this scenario - not by a long shot. Dan Graziano of ESPN.com then wrote an article about the matter today and I was scratching my head while reading the "piece" in its entirety, before I scrolled to the top of the website to make sure it didn't say The Onion. Graziano's article is titled, "NCAA labels Chip Kelly a cheater." Yes, things only got worse from there... Graziano started the article by saying this: "I know that the vast majority of Philadelphia Eagles fans won't care. I know that all you care abou...

I read another fairly pointless sports article the other day, courtesy of ESPN.com. This one was written by one Dan Graziano. The article was entitled, "Can Matt Barkley get into Eagles' QB race?" Here's how the article begins: "The Philadelphia Eagles announced that fourth-round pick Matt Barkley has signed his contract, which is not really news, since everybody knows all the draft picks will eventually sign and it's not as though they can sign anywhere else..." That's the perfect way to start an article - "X happened, which isn't really news, since it was inevitable it would happen anyway..." Graziano should have stopped there, but he didn't do that, unfortunately. He continued his "piece" by saying this: "...But it gives us a reason to bring up Barkley and discuss the extent to which he will or could factor into the Eagles' quarterback picture for 2013." Hadn't this already been discussed? ...

I read an article today which likely resulted as being a potential finalist for the least-sexy-facial-expression of the year. It was written by one Eliot Shorr-Parks of NJ.com and entitled, "Should the Eagles release Michael Vick?" My short answer to that is no. If someone had asked me before the Eagles re-signed the veteran quarterback, I probably wouldn't have provided a definite answer. However, after re-signing Vick to a 1-year, $7 million+ contract, how in the world would it make sense to release him? Mr. Shorr-Parks, what's your take on this? "It wasn't exactly a 'play me or else' proclamation, but listening to Michael Vick talk after Eagles practice on Thursday, it wasn't hard to see where this could be going." Oh, so a guy who was signed for another year and up to $10 million if everything goes well should be released because of what Mr. Shorr-Parks sees happening in the future through his crystal ball? That's a good enoug...

There's been a lot of talk at ESPN and elsewhere regarding the Philadelphia Eagles and who their starting quarterback is going to be heading into the coming season. I've read columns making a case for Michael Vick, Nick Foles, and Matt Barkley. Dennis Dixon hasn't even been ruled out in some of these articles. Well, I'll announce Chip Kelly's decision right here and now - barring an injury, Michael Vick is going to be the starting quarterback heading into the season. This is Vick's last chance with the Eagles. He was signed for one year and nearly $8 million. Former Oregon head coach Chip Kelly and his spread-option offense came to Philly so the team could experiment, take a different path, and also to see what he could do with the explosive, yet risky Vick. If the veteran Pro-Bowl quarterback doesn't produce and the team isn't contending for a playoff spot toward the middle to latter portion of the season, expect 2nd-year quarterback Nick Foles and ro...

It's unknown how well head coach Chip Kelly's offense will transfer from the college game to the NFL. However, I have to say I like what he and management have done with the team in the off-season as far as free agent acquisitions and draft picks go. The Eagles are one of the most highly graded teams as far as their draft picks went over the weekend. NFL Draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. gave the Eagles a B+ grade - a B for needs and an A for value. As far as the NFC East is concerned, Kiper graded the Eagles as the best in all three categories. The Giants, Cowboys, and Redskins all came away with C+ grades overall and anything from B to C- grades in terms of needs and value. The following players were drafted by Philadelphia over the weekend: Round 1, Pick 4: Lane Johnson (OT/Oklahoma) Round 2, Pick 35: Zach Ertz (TE/Stanford) Round 3, Pick 67: Bennie Logan (DT/LSU) Round 4, Pick 98: Matt Barkley (QB/USC) Round 5, Pick 136: Earl Wolff (S/North Carolina State) Round 7,...

ESPN just reported that quarterback Michael Vick will be restructuring his contract to stay a Philadelphia Eagle for another year. The contract will be good for one year and while new head coach Chip Kelly said there will be competition for the starting quarterback job, it seems to be all but a given that Vick will be the starter. Is this a good or bad move by the Eagles? That's highly debatable. While I feel that Vick is a much more suitable option in Chip Kelly's offense than Nick Foles, I personally think San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith would have been the best of the three quarterbacks. Smith has decent size and isn't as prone to getting banged up following multiple hits in the backfield than Vick. He's not as quick as Vick, but has better speed than Foles. He's also less turnover prone than either of those two quarterbacks, with a higher completion percentage than either as well. While Smith isn't as dynamic as Vick at times, he's more prov...

Upon hearing that the Philadelphia Eagles had hired Oregon head coach Chip Kelly, the word I'd use to describe my reaction would be "intrigued."  Part of this is due to the fact Chip Kelly doesn't have any NFL experience, yet the guy's offensive wit helped the Ducks dominate the Pac-12 conference in recent years. Like when Steve Spurrier took his show to D.C. to coach the Redskins, that same curiosity is present regarding Kelly, who, like Spurrier, doesn't run a prototypical NFL-style offense. So, the big question on most people's minds, will his style of offense work in the NFL?  At this point, no one knows the answer to that question. We can all give our predictions, include as many numbers and sources as possible, but until we see the results on the field and long-term mind you, we're not going to know just how well Chip Kelly's offense will transfer over to the next level. I am intrigued, however, and slightly excited to see Kelly attemp...