The Philadelphia Eagles sent shockwaves throughout the NFL when they announced the firing of head coach Chip Kelly Tuesday night. Though his status with the team certainly appeared to be in jeopardy after the team’s playoff hopes went up in smoke Saturday night with a 38-24 loss to the Redskins, the timing of the decision and the way it was made public came as a surprise to most observers.
Team owner, chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie didn’t wait until what’s known as “Black Monday” to make a move. And the news wasn’t necessarily broken by any particular member of the media. Instead, it was divulged in a letter Lurie sent to season ticket holders that accompanied a simultaneous press release.
Letter from Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie: https://t.co/8XfWz1ps9B pic.twitter.com/2e7FVb1FBe
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 30, 2015
Decision To Cede Control over Personnel to Chip Kelly Backfires on Lurie, Eagles
Lurie would meet with reporters Wednesday afternoon to discuss some of the factors that impacted his decision to move on from Kelly after three seasons. Considering the franchise has made just three coaching changes since he assumed ownership in 1994, it’s something that the organization isn’t exactly used to doing on a regular basis.
“It’s not something we do every day,” Lurie stated in his opening remarks. “It’s not something you can anticipate but, anyway, it was a clear and important decision that we made.”
In deciding to part ways before the traditional first Monday after the end of the regular season, the Eagles owner stressed the need to move forward sooner rather than later.
“I wanted to get a jump start on our coaching search,” Lurie noted. “I knew already what we were going to do and I thought that having six extra days was pretty important.”
What ultimately contributed to Kelly’s demise in Philly? Was it a second consecutive season of missing the playoffs that was confirmed after their lackluster showing against Washington? Is it an indication that his up-tempo style of offense, which prompts NBC to time the Eagles plays when they play on Sunday Night Football, can’t work in the NFL?
Lurie did make mention of the fact that the team’s looming sub-.500 season after consecutive 10-6 campaigns was a signal to him that things weren’t heading in the right direction under the current coaching regime. And even though it appeared to be a hastened sort of reaction given that Kelly wasn’t terminated at the conclusion of the season, he made it clear this was an evaluation of the entirety of Kelly’s body of work.
“With a coach and almost with any key executive, it’s important to really, carefully evaluate and analyze, not to be impatient, not to react to a series of games,” Lurie said. “So every season I have to carefully look over everything and this was really a three-year evaluation.”
Though that may indeed be the case, perhaps the biggest development over the course of Kelly’s tenure that played the most prominent role in his eventual ouster took place on January 4th of this year. It was then that Lurie decided to give Kelly more control over the composition of the roster by naming him director of player personnel. There had been rumors that he did not see eye to eye with Howie Roseman, the general manager at the time, and was threatening to leave. With this additional responsibility, Kelly had more leeway in molding the team together as he saw fit while Roseman dealt with contract negotiations, salary cap matters, among other things.
Of course, such a dual role is not without precedent.
Perhaps the most famous current example is Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. The four-time Super Bowl champion head coach has also effectively functioned as the team’s general manager during the entirety of his 16-year tenure with the team. His success in balancing both tasks has spoken for itself. After all, drafting Tom Brady late in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft will ultimately go down as the greatest value pick in history.
Even Kelly’s predecessor in Philadelphia, Andy Reid, was in a similar dual capacity for the majority of his time as head coach. In 2001, heading into his third season with the Eagles, Lurie named Reid executive vice president of football operations giving him similar control over the roster that Kelly was coveting. Philly would make the playoffs in each of the next four seasons, culminating with an appearance in Super Bowl XXXIX where they narrowly lost to Belichick’s Patriots.
But in the case of Kelly, it became apparent fairly quickly that he was in over his head with such expanded authority. Or, at the very least, that turned out to be the case in retrospect using the “hindsight is 20/20” principle.
The first example came days before 2015 free agency was slated to start. On March 4th, it was announced that running back LeSean McCoy was being traded to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for linebacker Kiko Alonso.
The transaction raised eyebrows for a number of reasons.
Why trade a player who had established himself as one of the NFL’s top backs and had averaged 1,463 yards rushing and seven touchdowns over the previous two seasons? And was getting a third-year linebacker who, despite having an impressive rookie campaign, missed all of 2014 due to a torn ACL enough in return?
You couldn’t fault Kelly for trying to sell high on McCoy. The shelf life of an NFL running back is notoriously short and with “Shady” heading into his seventh season in the league there’s always the fear of a steep drop-off. But using our hindsight glasses, McCoy likely would’ve had his third straight season of 1,000 yards rushing if not for nagging minor injuries at the start and end of the season. And Alonso missed nearly half the season due to a recurrence of his knee injury and had one-fifth of the total tackles he had his rookie year.
Then there was the curious starting quarterback swap that took place on March 13th. The Eagles would deal Nick Foles, a fourth-round pick in 2015 and second-round pick in 2016 for Sam Bradford and a fifth-round 2015 selection and another conditional pick based on Bradford’s playing time.
Much like Alonso, Bradford’s injury history was a major reason why this deal was met with a fair amount of skepticism and bewilderment among fans and pundits. He had missed all or part of three of his previous five seasons in the league, mostly due to multiple torn ACLs. There’s also the fact that in Kelly’s first year as head coach, Foles lit the league up when he was eventually named starter in favor of Michael Vick. He would finish the year with 2,891 yards, 27 touchdowns and a minuscule two interceptions.
Though Foles certainly came down to earth in 2014 and battled injury himself, was sending him on his way for a signal caller who’s struggled to stay healthy throughout his career the right move? Those trusty hindsight glasses would indicate to us that the jury’s still out on that. But it must be said that Bradford probably had the better year, especially considering Foles was benched by the Rams after week ten and currently has one of the worst Total QBRs (30) in the league.
Now both those above acquisitions were eyebrow raisers to say the least. But in the end, the one that played the biggest part in costing Kelly his job was the free agency signing of DeMarco Murray. And at first glance, it appeared to be the safest of bets. Murray finished the 2014 season as the NFL rushing champion, gaining 1,845 yards on the ground, adding 13 touchdowns and figuring prominently into the Dallas Cowboys NFC East title and their first playoff win since 2009.
But things slowly but surely began to sour during Murray’s first year in an Eagles uniform. Instead of operating as a pure feature back as he did in Dallas, Murray often shared reps with Ryan Mathews and, to a lesser extent, Darren Sproles. This was not his expectation after signing that five-year $40 million extension in the offseason.
It all came to a head after the Eagles 35-28 upset win at New England in week 13. After finishing the game third on the team in rushing with a paltry eight carries and 24 yards with no touchdowns, Murray vented his frustrations at his role in the offense to Lurie on the team flight back to Philadelphia. And according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the two had a conversation not too long thereafter where Murray essentially gave Lurie a no-confidence vote in Kelly’s leadership of the team.
Among the things DeMarco Murray told owner Jeffrey Lurie weeks ago was that he had no confidence in Chip Kelly as head coach, I'm told.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 30, 2015
Putting on our hindsight glasses for the final time reveals a telltale sign of tragic irony. How so? Because the player looked at as the crown jewel of Kelly’s first batch of offseason acquisitions ends up being the one most responsible for the reason he’s no longer head coach.
In moving towards the next step, there are learning experiences to be had for all parties involved. In Lurie’s case, he would do well to be more leery in giving Kelly’s successor the amount of control over the organization that the now departed Eagles coach ended up enjoying. It already appears that he may be leaning towards such a strategy in undertaking this new coaching search.
“With Chip, I think there were some very good reasons to be bold about what he wanted to be able to accomplish and do,” Lurie asserted. “However, going forward, I think a much more collaborative approach between player personnel and coaching is the way to go.”
There can be little doubt that what transpired this past year in his 22nd season as Eagles owner enlightened him as to the potential pitfalls of giving general manager duties to a head coach.
After all, not everyone’s Andy Reid or Bill Belichick.
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