OWNER Jeff Lurie wasted no time cutting out the cancer on his team. Former Eagles Head Coach Chip Kelly didn’t even get a chance to coach the final game of the season, or give a farewell address to the players. I almost said “his players” but unless you played at Oregon, I have severe doubts that he has many (if any) players in that locker room who considered themselves “his” guys.
Considering how much of his coaching staff was handpicked to coach specific techniques for his system; and considering how many soft and candy-ass players he bought in here, there will be a lot of debris from the tear down that is soon to follow. So lets take a look at what it will likely mean.
The coaching staff will turn over. Defensive Coordinator Bill Davis may as well not even show up for all the good he’s done. Fans hate him, and as you know (if you’ve been following this website for the last two years), his system is full of bad concepts which teams exploit almost in their sleep. If we switch from a 3-4 to a 4-3 it would make sense for the entire staff to go except for maybe Defensive Backs coach Cory Undlin. This unit was a train wreck before he got here and it’s hard to pin much blame on a guy for struggling within an already badly flawed system.
The worst part is the inability of this staff to develop our youth. Offensive Line coach Jeff Stoutland didn’t develop any of his second string charges into competent linemen, and even starting RT Lane Johnson is nowhere near where his potential suggested he could be when he was drafted. In the last two drafts we added WR’s Nelson Agholor in the first round, Jordan Matthews in the second round, and Josh Huff in the third round. While Matthews seems productive at first glance (145 catches, 1815 yards and 14 TD’s in two seasons) his production as you can see, has been HIGHLY erratic. Our WR’s mostly disappointing numbers (Agholor has 21 catches for 260 yards and a TD this year; Huff has 35 catches for 410 yards and 3 TD’s in two years) have more to do with poor coaching than anything else.
And then there’s the blatant favoritism. Would anyone care to explain why 2nd round pick DE Vinny Curry has never started a game in four years, yet DE’s Brandon Bair (FA) and Taylor Hart (5th round) have? By the way size isn’t the issue, as Curry is 279 to Bair’s 280 and Hart’s 281.
In fact, aside from Special Teams coach Dave Fipp, Running Backs coach Duce Staley, and the aforementioned Undlin, I’d broom the whole staff.
It also means that you can just about kiss goodbye to QB Sam Bradford. Kelly trading away a second rounder for him was almost the equivalent to the purchase of Manhattan. Lurie will likely want to air out the stink of that trade.
Player movement in a regime change is hard to predict, but when you bring in a new coach he usually arrives with a wrecking ball. So as for PLAYERS to package in a trade or let go of, the smart list looks like:
QB’s Sam Bradford and Mark Sanchez: Draft a QB and get a back-up who can run the new system.
RB Kenjon Barner: He’s one dimensional and we’re loaded with the other three in a real system.
WR Riley Cooper: We never needed him. Eat the dead money and open up a roster spot.
TE Brent Celek: I love him but we need the cap space, and it’s time.
OT’s Jason Peters, Dennis Kelly, Matt Tobin: Peters is done (unless he moves inside) and the other two are disasters.
OG’s All but our starters: We need new starters but our current starters would be decent depth.
DL Beau Allen and anyone who played at Oregon: Cedric Thornton can rotate at DT in a 4-3.
OLB’s Connor Barwin, Marcus Smith: Barwin is good but doesn’t fit anywhere in a 4-3.
ILB DeMeco Ryans: Is more valuable as a leader than as an athlete at this point.
CB Nolan Carroll: I let him walk in Free Agency and let Denzel Rice push to start.
S Walter Thurmond and Chris Maragos: Move Eric Rowe to FS.
Again you don’t have to RELEASE all of these guys. Packaging and trading some of them with picks insures that we’d be in better positions to replace the players we can’t really use, with pieces that fit better. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of seeing guys walk for nothing.
EAGLEMANIACAL.com 
Say it ain’t so…not Celek, Barwin, Ryans, Thurmond and Barner!!! It’s gonna be a long few or even more seasons! Ugg.
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Maybe not.
The rumblings are that we’re looking to go back to a 4-3 defense since we already have players better suited to it than the 3-4. So Barwin and Ryan (especially with his age and injury history) are only set up to look bad if we keep them.
Thurmond will be looking for a big payday finally.
Celek I love, but he’s due 4M this year and with other FA’s to sign the Eagles will need the space. And if he goes that just means that Zach Ertz will play more.
Barner is one-dimensional to start with and besides, in a traditional run scheme, our other 3 RB’s will perform like the stable of studs that they should have been this year. Each of them has done it in the NFL. It took Kelly to make all three look bad.
We went 6-10/7-9 in humiliating fashion this year, but if we plug in young players and we SEE their progress, the same record next year could be exciting to watch unfold.
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Basically Chip called Lurie a liar by denying his player personnel role. I think Lurie has some explaining to do. That is what caused his early exit. Lurie getting the jump on him. While everone is preoccupied with the firing Lurie is ducking the real issues.
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Lurie has no explaining to do. He simply has a GM and head coach to hire. Kelly was a bad choice and I said as much BEFORE he was hired. He then butted heads with Lurie’s golden boy Howie, so Lurie set him up, and in Chip’s NFL naivete, he walked right into a “Heads I win, tails you lose” scenario.
I said this in plain English back in January.
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I have not heard anyone mention GM which leads me to believe they have already have one. According to Chip he was never the GM. Why should he not be believed?
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He never was the GM in title, but we all know he was the guy calling the shots. Howie Roseman didn’t decide to start cramming the roster full of Ducks. Roseman didn’t decide to trade away Nick Foles and a 2nd round pick or get rid of LeSean McCoy. Roseman wasn’t the one who said he mishandled Jeremy Maclin in free agency. Fact is this was all Kelly. he was NEVER the titular GM, but he was very much the GM.
I can call my foot whatever I like, but in the end it’s still a foot.
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He did not have the title and he claims he was not in charge of personnel decisions. I have no reason to believe Chip is a liar . Frankly Luries reaction to that claim by firing Chip 2 days later says more about the possibility that its true. This says a lot about Lurie and who runs that organization. Fact is Lurie said this is not how I ” run” my organization.
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You have no reason to believe Chip is a liar? Okay, but that puts you at odds with the balance of fan experiences here. It’s partly why so many people soured on him so badly.
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To think that Jeff Lurie is so incompetent as to allow a new guy to get rid of alll his stars without Jeffs blessing makes no sense. If someone I just hired came to me (in my business)and said get rid of your 3 best drivers I would laugh in his face. Although my business model is different certain principles always hold true. And one is the owner and CEO/President have the last say. Lurie is responsible as well as the rest of his executive staff. It would be like listening to someone saying take the tomatoes out of the ketchup. And then saying the CEO knew nothing of this. I said when they let Reid go Lurie would position the team to sell it. I think he may still that as pressure begins to mount from the fan base. He is not getting a credible HC. You think the next guy wants to be Howies lap dog? This thing could easily spiral even further. I will not even attend a game if given a free ticket.
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Your issues with Lurie are long documented 🙂 And I’m not saying that Lurie had no idea what was happening. In fact I’m pretty sure he and Howie saw this coming, which is why Lurie insulated Howie from any splash-back right at the beginning of making this move. When it happened I wrote about how impressed with how Machiavellian the move was. Lurie ALWAYS knew Chip might screw it up that was why he placed all the weight on him and him alone.
Also the press conference where Kelly said he wasn’t the GM, didn’t hand out scouting assignments and whatnot, notice that he did NOT mention Roseman for any of that. The guy he fingered was Ed Marynowitz. Which is hilarious because he’s the guy CHIP hired.
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I get the connection Beast but the press continues to call Lurie a “hands off owner”. That could not be farther from the truth. He is at the Nova complex everyday and knows the impact of letting guys like McCoy go. Its that simple.
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