Long, strange trip to Kelly’s wacky world
PHOENIX − There are only two possible outcomes to Chip Kelly’s offseason experiment filled with wackiness, wisdom and curiosity: The iconoclastic Eagles coach will either be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy down Broad St. in the near future . . . or he’ll never be able to show his face in Philly again for fear of retaliation from its peeved residents. There will be no middle ground. Kelly has quickly morphed into the NFL’s most polarizing figure, defying convention one bold move at a time for a team coming off a pair of 10-win seasons. He is an evil genius or a clueless buffoon, depending on whom you ask.
His systematic roster overhaul that has included jettisoning the Eagles’ most dynamic players dominated the discussion during free agency.
“I don’t think it benefits us to tell anybody else what our vision us,” Kelly said Wednesday morning, bouncing between fact and fiction during an hour-long roundtable discussion with reporters at the NFL meetings.
Kelly stormed into the NFL two years ago with a progressive bent filled with cutting-edge beliefs for an organization pushed to the margin at the end of Andy Reid’s 14-year run.
In the span of three dizzying months, the fast-talking head coach has usurped full control of the Eagles’ football operations.
Kelly marginalized former general manager Howie Roseman by selling owner Jeffrey Lurie on a plan to take the Eagles from very good to great. Roseman was booted from his office at the team’s Novacare Complex, probably working diligently on the Penske File, while Kelly delves into player-personnel matters now.
The front-office restructuring that included Kelly’s hand-picked GM Ed Marynowitz was the first chapter in a cyclone of an offseason in Philly. Kelly traded away star running back LeSean McCoy, starting quarterback Nick Foles and declined to pony up enough money for top wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, prompting many to wonder, “What the hell is this man doing?”
Nobody truly has an answer.
Kelly operates in stealth mode, keeping everyone guessing at all times. His plan sometimes lacks logic to outsiders, which probably makes him giggle. If sharing is caring, then Kelly simply doesn’t give a rat’s derriere about divulging the method to his madness.
He seemingly thinks so far outside the box that the box is a dot. He is the undisputed master at subtle character assassination. To wit, Kelly on Roseman, whose lifelong dream was to be a GM making football decisions: “Howie does an unbelievable job from the contract side and cap side.”
Translation: He’s an accountant, not a football man.
Kelly doesn’t care about his image, but he shouldn’t care about his image. He knows what he knows. He probably knows more than you.
Nobody is safe on his roster, even superstars. “Everybody on our roster is available if someone wants to talk,” Kelly said. “I mean, we traded LeSean.”
He won’t trade up for former pupil Marcus Mariota in the upcoming draft . . . unless he does. He insists that he’s not willing to “mortgage the future” to land the Heisman Trophy quarterback. His definition of “mortgaging the future” other than trading away his entire draft (see: Ricky Williams) remains a mystery by design.
He says he believes in a quantity-over-quality draft approach, but there are always ways to wiggle out of words. He is a walking, talking loophole.
“There are exceptions to every philosophy,” Kelly said. “People used to think the world was flat philosophically, right, until that guy took the boat and just kept going and didn’t fall off the edge.”
He traded McCoy because he was too pricey before pouring money into running backs DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews, justifying the decisions by pointing to a lighter 2015 salary-cap hit. He (wisely) overpaid for cornerback Byron Maxwell to improve a laughably inept cornerback situation from a year ago. He added a promising young linebacker (Kiko Alonso) coming off an ACL injury and a quarterback (Sam Bradford) coming off two ACL injuries.
Although some questioned whether Kelly had a firm free-agency plan in place or was simply making it up on the fly, there’s no debating that he has conviction in the types of players he’s looking for.
“The guys that can’t tell you what they want in a player are probably the teams that aren’t successful,” Kelly said. “When guys are specific and know exactly what they want, then you have a chance to fix it. But if you don’t understand what you want — the kind of player, the defensive scheme or offensive scheme − then you can never correct a mistake, because you don’t even know if you’re making a mistake.”
Is Kelly making a mistake right now? The conclusion will be fascinating one way or the other.