Kelly was decent NFL coach but a failure as his own GM
Ctime as an NFL coach presumably ended with his return to the college ranks, achieved when he reached an agreement Saturday to take over at UCLA.
Kelly’s 28-35 record in four seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers means he will be remembered as a failed NFL coach. He joins Lou Holtz, Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban and other highly successful college coaches who could not make it work on Sundays.
But in truth, Kelly was a not-halfbad coach. Instead, he was a terrible NFL general manager. And if he hadn’t made a power grab in Philadelphia and made himself his own GM, there’s a chance he could have had some lasting NFL success.
Kelly arrived in the NFL in 2013 amid great curiosity and fanfare after his run of on-field prosperity at Oregon. His jump to the NFL seemed, like Spurrier’s, in part a lab experiment to see if his ideas about how to run an offense would work at the next level. Kelly’s teams at Oregon played fast and played well. But would it translate?
For a while, at least, it did. It’s easy to forget now. But for two seasons,
Kelly thrived in Philadelphia. His first two Eagles teams had identical 10-6 records. He reached the playoffs in his first season.
He somehow coaxed a 27-touchdown, two-interception season out of quarterback Nick Foles in 2013. That alone should have put Kelly on his way to Hall of Fame consideration.
Foles, in the rest of his NFL career, has totaled 29 touchdowns and 25 interceptions.
Then came Kelly’s mistake, convincing Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie that if he was going to cook the meals, in the words of Bill Parcells, he should be allowed to shop for the groceries as well.
“Chip had a vision of exactly how he thought we could get from good to great,” Lurie said after turning over control of the Eagles’ roster construction to Kelly in 2015.
“And I thought it was a really sound vision, that he’s a very bright guy. He’s all about football. He’s all about wanting to win big. It made so much sense. When we hired Chip, his style of play is very different than what we had before. … We were not organized and designed in that way. … Were we going to maximize Chip Kelly’s vision and system? Or were we gonna counteract it and, in a sense, not try to maximize having Chip and what he was bringing to the staff and the organization?”
But Kelly was no Bill Parcells.
Instead of turning the Eagles from good to great, he turned them from good to bad.
He traded Foles for fellow quarterback Sam Bradford.
He traded tailback Lesean Mccoy and signed Demarco Murray, who did not fit into the Eagles’ offense.
He allowed Jeremy Maclin to exit via free agency a year after releasing fellow wide receiver Desean Jackson.
The Eagles came unraveled and
Lurie lost patience quickly, firing Kelly with one game remaining in the 2015 season. The team had a 6-9 record at the time.
Kelly landed on his feet in San Francisco, coaching the Niners to a record of 2-14 last season. He was given only that one season by the constantly-in-flux 49ers, and reasonably what happened in San Francisco can’t really be regarded as Kelly’s fault.
The 49ers went 5-11 in 2015 under Kelly’s one-and-done predecessor, Jim Tomsula.
They are 1-9 this season under Kelly’s successor, Kyle Shanahan.
Kelly failed to work wonders in the Bay Area. But are there any wonders to be worked with that roster?
He is back where he belongs — in the college game. He will attempt to replicate his success at Oregon under what should be favorable circumstances in Los Angeles.
The NFL is unlikely to ever come calling again. And if it does, Kelly should not listen.
But if he’d stuck to coaching and coaching alone during his time in Philadelphia, things just might have been different for Kelly in the NFL.