OUR head coach is about to make us into the Redskins. Like their owner Dan Snyder, he doesn’t seem to grasp that there are rules to this game. There are rules for conducting one’s self as the face of an NFL franchise. Since he was hired here, Charles Kelly has been in steady violation of those rules.
All throughout Kelly’s tenure as Eagles Head Coach, something about him has rubbed me the wrong way. While it’s true that I didn’t want him hired in the first place, the same was true of Andy Reid. Reid however won me over by the end of his first year and I’m still a fan.
Yesterday I was listening to one of my playlists while I wrote my last article, since music is part of my writing process. Usually I have an eclectic group of songs on, but yesterday I went straight rap and I threw on my ‘BOOM BAP’ playlist. Between DMX and Jurassic 5, was 1-900-Hustler. When Freeway’s part came on, my eyes lit up. Suddenly I knew what wrong with the Eagles. By the end of this article you’ll know it too. Sit back, get comfortable, and get ready have your mind blown. If you can’t do that now, bookmark this and read it later.
I’ll start by showing you the lyrics, and then I’ll break it down. Trust me, even if you don’t follow rap, you’ll understand my explanation.
Freeway:
First things first, watch what you say out your mouth
When you talkin on the phone to hustlers
Never play the house, think drought, keep heat in the couch
When you sittin in the presence of customers
Never hold out, pull out, throw heat and be out
If a n***a ever think that he touchin ya
Lay low, get cake, whip all over the state
Stash dough, whip yay with, right amount of bake
Now I’ll explain:
First things first, watch what you say out your mouth
When you talkin on the phone to hustlers
When the season ended Kelly made it PUBLIC that he wanted a couple players to redo their deals. Jeff Lurie made it PUBLIC that he didn’t see Nick Foles as a top tier QB and Kelly never weighed in. Other NFL teams (hustlers), can see that, and it lowers any trade value those players may have.
Never play the house,
Kelly came in and butted heads with Howie Roseman. While many fans figured that Kelly won that power struggle, I made it plain that it was Kelly who lost. Take a look at this McCoy trade as an example. If it blows up, Roseman doesn’t have a single fingerprint on it. He gets the cap space to work with regardless, but no blame could ever be laid at his feet.
think drought, keep heat in the couch,
When you sittin in the presence of customers
Last year we only kept 9 offensive linemen. We added no young talent. We lacked both talent and depth when those injuries (drought) hit. The same lack of depth and talent was true of our pass rush. Mostly because more emphasis is put on Special Teams players than on back-ups who could legitimately start. That lack of firepower (heat) made it easier for opponents (customers) to rob us of wins, when we should have profited by serving them a loss.
Never hold out, pull out, throw heat and be out
If a n***a ever think that he touchin ya
Despite our troubles as the team collapsed last year, you pretty much NEVER saw McCoy and Darren Sproles on the field together. The short screen passes to Jordan Matthews practically disappeared. Losses piled up, yet we left our some of our best weapons unfired and even uncocked.
Lay low
Kelly has built himself up as the guy who’s going to change how everyone does everything. He’s come to the Eagles with the attitude of a man who’s won championships everywhere he’s gone, and so far his solution to those who aren’t in love with those changes is to ship them out. Be interesting to see which Free Agents want to sign here this year. And which ones we lose.
get cake, whip all over the state
So far Kelly has gone not only all over the state, but the country, talking to teams and trying put together a deal that would let us move up to get Oregon QB Marcus Mariota. Fact is, if we do move up it will cost us draft picks for years to come. And that’s if Mariota pans out. If he doesn’t, that’s all loss. I fail to see the profit (cake) in that.
Stash dough, whip yay with, right amount of bake
While the team has put money aside, it’s been done at the expense of talent. Right now he’s mixed more filler (bake) on this team than he has top talent (yay). Right now we have it backwards, but the hope/idea is that some of our cap space (stash) will attract more top talent.
Kelly is being reckless right now. And the guys who have to sell his product are being put in situation that gets harder to maintain every year. When a general makes it a habit of making things harder on his soldiers, he is in straight up violation.
I keep thinking…..all these Ducks……they can’t all possibly the best fit for the job. It’s been worrying me that Chip may mortgage our future for Mariota, just like the Skins did for RG3. BUT, I’ve decided that I’m gonna keep the faith until proven I shouldn’t. But I’m very worried!
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I hope he justifies your faith. I’m officially done with Charles Kelly.
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Lets start by looking at what we got rid of… A top tier running back in Shady McCoy, who lets all face it could be on the decline. I just read an interesting stat that said McCoy was ranked 15th out of 18 eligible running backs last season in Pro Football Focus’s “elusive rating,” an attempt to measure how many of a tailback’s yards are due to him and how many to his blockers. We also got rid of 11 million in cap space…. anyone knows that that is a lot for a running back these days (McCoy was not willing to re structure).
We get a strong prospect if he can stay healthy. 159 total tackles in 2013 as a rookie before he tore his ACL. Pretty awesome upside if you ask me. He could end up being a corner stone for defense for years to come. (still on rookie contract making $726,000 this year)
Will the fan base be happy if we are able to sign any two of the combination of Maxwell, Revis, or McCourty? I will be. I think we can somewhat replace Shady’s talent with our offensive scheme, but our defense needs playmakers to make it go. And lets face it, T-Cole is a great guy but he was going to cost to much, Cary Williams ( I think we are all happy he is gone). So Kelly’s offseason moves have made sense to me. He another hypothetical too, what if we could sign Demarco Murray for 7 or 8 million??? Would you be happy with that??? I would…..
I am betting by draft time, people will be calmed down and our team will look a lot better on paper.
Its like my dad always told me…… Buy low, and sell high!
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We traded for a guy with TWO ACL tears in his history (2010, 2014). As teh NFL has no established standard for crediting tackles and as many team award them differently, that has never been an impressive stat to me.
Cary Williams being gone is fine if we have a replacement for him, same with Cole. Given the amount of loyalty and respect Chip Kelly has so far shown pro players, it’ll be interesting to see who wants to come here.
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Analytically you can look at the Eagles and say they got rid of old players or players who weren’t cost effective, but what is lost here is this team has lost a great deal of veteran leadership. Not only that but having all of this money for free agency doesn’t necessarily mean that players (a) want to come here and deal with the Chip Kelly Rules Of Culture and (2) the players that do come will likely be just as overpaid as the guys we let go. And to top it off Chip will buck another trend by selling out our future to bring in Mariota. Sorry but once this all goes down I can’t see this team winning 8 games let alone make the playoffs. This means we will be taking a step backwards for Mariota and someone else will be benefitting from Chip’s obsession. When it’s all said and done Chip will be gone and our roster will be filled with a bunch of mediocre Oregon Ducks, over paid mercenaries, and a quarterback capable of playing one system. Our coach will be in the SEC someplace.
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While Heath Evans and I may have been over the line saying he could be the worst hire in NFL history, I think it’s pretty clear he’s not been a good one.
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I just dont understand this logic. Lets not forget he has won 20 games in his first two years. The offense has looked good (even with Mark Sanchez for god sakes). People thought letting DJax go was a horrible move, turns out it didnt really affect us much and we lost a loud mouth diva. I think the guy runs a tight ship and doesn’t take bull crap from players. Everybody talks about how teams win championships and i think he is trying to put together a team.
The Mariota thing will bother me if he sells the farm for him….. but im just not convinced he will. Remember all the media talking about Jerry Jones wanting Manziel…. turned out to be all hype, just like i think this is. I believe he will try and get him if he falls to a reasonable spot, but beyond that i dont think so.
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As I always say with Lurie just follow the money out the door. This is about bottom line profit . I have no seen Eagles do anything close to spending money. They will not win anything with Lurie as owner. He needs to sell.
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This time I think they plan to be free agent active with the newly saved money, if they don’t (even though I think the FA play is a bad one) the I would agree.
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I think they WANT to spend a bunch on “Kelly’s guys”, but I’m not sure they’re going to attract the type of talent they need to win
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I happen to agree with beast. There may be one big surprise .there is no one that they are building around. Even though Foles is not an answer he had enough talent that if you put great players around him he could win lots of games. This is the start of a dismantle and rebuild routine. Its somewhat contagious in Philly sports. Its a money saver without question. No one can deny that the Eagles are CHEAP. I think they are headed to the bottom of the division at this pace and there will be a new QB frenzy in Philly. And the psycho analysis will follow.
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Yeah I have NO clue who our centerpiece is .
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“The Gator reunion led to some ribbing from Tony Kornheiser:
At the moment there are two types of people in Washington: Those who think Steve Spurrier is an innovator, a visionary and maybe an offensive football genius. And those who say, “Oh, sure, Spurrier’s stuff worked great in college. But before you order Super Bowl rings, let’s see if it works in the NFL.”
You have the true believers and the skeptics. For the record, I’m in the first group. But neither group is going to have to wait long to see which side is winning. Spurrier is beginning to re-create what he had at the University of Florida. By that, I don’t mean Spurrier is fashioning something similar to what he had at Florida, I mean Spurrier is assembling the exact players he had at Florida — he’s not rebuilding, he’s cloning!”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/wp/2015/03/04/eagles-chip-kelly-loves-his-ducks-just-as-steve-spurrier-loved-his-gators/
Thought I would add a little info from the washington post in regards to the similarities between Spurrier and Chip. This sure feels like you could replace the names Redskins with Eagles and Spurrier with Kelly can’t you?
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Yes it does. This is exactly what I was afraid of. I was hoping that his first season as an NFL coach had shown him something, but then when he cut DJax, and gave Evan Mathis the finger, I knew what was happening.
After he told Taylor Hart that he was “putting the family back together”, I knew that he was going to dismantle the team this year. I even wrote about it starting last March.
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Quack quack
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