Section 215
Fansided

Chip Kelly Assures No Hypotheticals Will Define His Tenure Following LeSean McCoy Trade, Roster Purge

By Somers Price

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In a matter of two Eagles offseasons, Philadelphia has learned what it would have felt like if the Phillies had the wherewithal to turn over a roster that, in hindsight, was hanging on by a thread thanks to Chip Kelly. Roster stagnation in modern-day professional sports is a recipe for failure and it took Ruben Amaro Jr. and the Phillies front office three consecutive unsuccessful seasons to realize the true magnitude of their transgressions. In their minds, ‘going for it’ meant trying to land a prized free agent or trade piece that would almost certainly put them over the top for the second title that ultimately eluded them. In reality, ‘going for it’ should have meant trying to figure out which difficult decisions could have been made to prevent the Phillies window from having an end in sight.

The Eagles are in a different position than their South Broad companions in that they have not hoisted the holy grail of their respective sport. The Phillies managed to grow a nucleus capable of sustained greatness, only to have their loyalty blind them from finding a way to maximize the value they had worked so hard to build up. There is a reason sports teams such as the St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles Kings, and New England Patriots constantly find themselves challenging for and winning titles more than those teams scratching their heads as to why they aren’t in such a position. The most successful franchises in today’s world of professional sports are the ones who can properly identify which players are crucial to their future and which ones are not before any individual outside of the organization realizes it.

Sports teams should be bigger than the players that fans identify them with. There will always be those unique individuals (Larry Bird, Tom Brady, Magic Johnson, Derek Jeter) who manage to tie the hands of even the most calculated organizations enough to where they become un-moveable. However, several of the teams mentioned above may have had players who, at times, seemed like they could have been included in that group only to move them at the exact moment that most benefits the long-term hopes of the franchise and its fans. We’re about to find out if Chip Kelly possesses the vision that the city of Philadelphia has been deprived of despite being one of the most prominent sports markets in the country.

Kelly has put one of the most ambitious re-tool projects in recent sports memory squarely upon his shoulders and polarized a fanbase in doing so. In one fell swoop, punctuated by his trading of LeSean McCoy, Chip Kelly positioned himself to completely overhaul a roster that was clearly not coming together in a way that he felt could achieve his ultimate goal of bringing a Super Bowl to Philadelphia. At the expense of a handful of veterans, including several fan-favorites, Kelly freed up enough salary cap space and roster flexibility to expedite a process that was not taking place in a manner he saw acceptable.

When it became clear that Howie Roseman was part of what was preventing that from happening, Kelly saw to it that the now-former GM would no longer be a problem. When a group of aging, albeit likable players took up the salary cap space Kelly felt could be more effectively allocated to address bigger issues on the roster, the all-powerful Chip trimmed each one from the Eagles payroll without thinking twice about it. There is still one more matter Chip Kelly is almost certain to address. Judging from what we’ve seen to this point, it’s tough to doubt his chances of reuniting with the quarterback he sees fit to run his offense.

If this offseason has told us anything, is that Chip Kelly is not one for trying to force a square peg in a round hole. Kelly does not work under the same restrictive mindset that so many coaches in football seem held back by. For better or worse, the Eagles coach seems to have had a definitive idea for the types of players he wants making up his team and clearly has no issue taking drastic measures to phase out those who do not fit the mold. Off-the-field transgressions aside, it was no secret that Kelly did not feel the 5’10”, 175 pounds soaking wet DeSean Jackson could realistically be a primary receiver in his offense that asked more of his outside players than running go routes. A year later, rumblings of Kelly’s distaste for LeSean McCoy’s running style and cavalier way of carrying the ball came to fruition and the league’s second-leading rusher was whisked away just as many had feared might happen.

Chip Kelly was not brought to Philadelphia to increase LeSean McCoy’s jersey sales or make DeSean Jackson one of the most prolific pass-catchers in football. Chip Kelly was brought in to achieve a single goal. Every action taken by Kelly since his arrival has been a means to an end. By making himself indispensable to Jeffrey Lurie, Chip has attained the level of power necessary to shape his team in the only way he sees appropriate to take the field under his lead. No matter how uncomfortable the cold, calculated manner of Kelly’s power grab may make Lurie feel, it might be the only way he can salvage his tenure as team owner with the Super Bowl that seemed like a certainty in the earlier stages of his life.

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What comes next for Chip is the difficult part. Despite now having over $50 million in cap space (a number that could continue to grow in the coming days), free agency does not always reward those teams with the most to spend. It is up to Kelly to convince not only those players he is in pursuit of, but those who remain on his roster that there is a method to his perceived madness and every difficult decision he has made is for the greater good.

Can Chip sell the Eagles as a contender if the roster that helped him win 20 games in his first two seasons is almost completely different? Can he reel in those individuals who stuck their neck out for McCoy following the news of the trade and have them recommit to to the cause? At this point, it’s tough to say. More likely than not, Kelly will add another chapter to his shock and awe show in the coming days when he unloads a king’s ransom of draft picks and players to move up to the top of the draft to assure his reunion with Marcus Mariota. Given that the draft falls well after the brunt of the NFL’s free agency period, it is likely that securing his quarterback will be the final piece of Kelly’s radical puzzle. At this point, it’s very tough to doubt that he will find a way to get it done.

When the fanbase of a team does not have titles to fall back on, they naturally gravitate towards prolific individual talents. Present company included, Eagles fans especially have a away of donning rose-colored glasses when it comes to judging the premiere players that make up the team. For all of his regular season greatness, LeSean McCoy came up especially small in the postseason (38 carries, 147 total yards, 0-3 Eagles record) when the ability to lean on the run game becomes paramount. It didn’t take an NFL scout to see that McCoy was not the same player in 2014 that he was in 2013 and given how the league values running backs in today’s day and age, Kelly clearly thought a player with over 1700 career touches at a cap hit in the $12 million stratosphere was not a smart allocation of resources. In an exit interview on 97.5 the Fanatic, now-departed offensive lineman Todd Herremans provided some candid comments regarding McCoy prior to the trade that shed a great deal of light on where Kelly places his value.

Chip Kelly has already identified which players on his current roster are fits for his team and those who did not make the cut. There will most likely be more ‘casualties’ in the coming days before his final roster purge is complete. It is a tactic never before seen in the NFL and certainly a rock to the core of a Philadelphia Eagles fanbase just getting over the frustration of the ‘Dream Team’ disaster.

Kelly is not a half or a three-quarters-in type of guy. Chip is ‘all-in’ on his philosophies and doesn’t care what the fans, media, or rest of the league thinks of him. Jeffrey Lurie may not have known just how big a risk he was taking when he managed to pry Kelly away from Oregon, but he’s going to have to embrace the monster he unleashed on his beloved organization. As for Eagles fans, to echo a sentiment crafted by the Inquirer’s Mike Sielski, invite the uncertainty into your life and embrace something you haven’t felt before. The Phillies deprived us of the type of management required to transform a one-time winner into a generational contender.

It’s not a guarantee that what Kelly is doing will translate to that sort of success, but decades of the safer alternative certainly wasn’t doing the trick. Don’t be afraid of something radical when status quo only brought upon relentless frustration and disappointment. This was a team that was a cut below the Seahawks and Packers teams of the world and fitted with a roster that did not allow the sort of flexibility to improve enough to reach that stratosphere. Chip Kelly has created that flexibility and knows exactly what he wants to do going forward. Though it might not end up working, at least we know that both the organization’s and fanbase’s investment in Chip Kelly will be one that the head coach sees is fulfilled, for better or worse.

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