BELICHICK VOICES STRONG SUPPORT FOR FIRED KELLY

PHILADELPHIA » Consider Bill Belichick one of Chip Kelly’s strongest supporters.

The Patriots’ four- time Super Bowl champion coach called Kelly’s firing by the Eagles “really disappointing” and praised his coaching skills.

Kelly was dismissed Tuesday with one game remaining in an underwhelming season. The Eagles are 6- 9 after going 10- 6 in each of Kelly’s first two seasons and winning one division title.

Kelly and the Eagles pulled off a stunning upset over Belichick’s Patriots last month. They rallied from a 14- 0 deficit for a 35- 28 victory at New England.

“Chip is a great coach,” Belichick said Thursday. “He’ll end up somewhere and he’ll do a great job there.”

Belichick didn’t think the Eagles gave Kelly enough time.

“I don’t know how you build a program in one year,” he said. “You have to change the culture. ... It takes some time to go through that. I don’t think there is any shortcut to it. I know there are a lot of other people in the league that think there is, that after two weeks all of a sudden everything is going to change dramatically, but I’m not really part of that. I don’t buy into that.”

Bills planning to cut DE Williams. It’s going to be game over for Super Mario in Buffalo after the Bills play their season finale Sunday.

High- priced defensive end Mario Williams will be cut by the Bills during the offseason, a person with knowledge of discussions told The Associated Press. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the team does not publicly discuss its player personnel plans.

No timetable was provided as to when Williams will be cut, but the person said the team’s top passrushing threat’s final game will be Buffalo’s home game against the New York Jets ( 10- 5). The Bills ( 7- 8) have been eliminated from the playoffs. Footnotes. Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel was officially ruled out of the season finale against Pittsburgh because of a concussion. … Jets quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick fully participated in practice after being limited Wednesday because of a sore thumb, elbow and lower back. Neither Fitzpatrick nor coach Todd Bowles was concerned about the quarterback’s availability for the Jets’ game at Buffalo, but it eased any doubts to see him take part in all drills.