Five Big-Picture Takeaways from Eagles Week 13 Win vs Patriots
By Somers Price
4.) Personnel Flexibility Will be Essential to This Team’s Success Going Forward
As mentioned earlier in the piece, it seemed as if Chip Kelly put together this week’s strategy without taking into consideration whether or not a player was a veteran or had any sort of cache. Miles Austin was a healthy scratch, DeMarco Murray saw considerably fewer touches than many expected of him, and Vinny Curry seemed to see the field more than he has all year. Though some of this, notably Curry’s role, was as a result of injury, that does not mean Kelly should not take a long look at how he formulates his starting roster. Maybe it was because they were playing the Patriots, but there seemed to be much more energy coming from the Eagles players than at any point over the last month.
Chip Kelly has never had to deal with the balancing act of trying to put the best team on the field knowing that some players get paid a lot more than others. One can question whether or not signing DeMarco Murray was a mistake all season. Kelly has kept at it with the 2014 rushing champion and Murray has only delivered in brief spurts. What people saw on Sunday is that there are players on this roster capable of executing the gameplan to a higher level than what was seen in the past. This just happened to be the week that Kelly gave some other players a chance to prove their worth.
No one reading (or writing) this article has had to sit a grown man, making millions of dollars, down and tell him he’s not going to see the field as much. From everything known about how things operate within the NovaCare Complex, Kelly doesn’t interact much with his team anyway. No matter how he goes about it, it isn’t easy to have that conversation. That being said, the proof is in the pudding when it comes to the NFL. Winning is paramount and for Kelly, given that he’s in charge of personnel and coaching, it’s essential to figure out what the right combination is. Many were frustrated at his insistence of keeping players like Austin at the top of the depth chart when his performance did not warrant it. A player can only excel in practice so much before it’s the coaches responsibility to realize that if that does not translate to the game, he isn’t doing any good for the team.
If the 2015 Eagles are as set on winning as they’ve claimed to be, a handful of them will have to swallow their pride and allow Kelly to make the difficult decisions without causing a fuss. It’s almost as if Chip understood the heat he was dealing with going into Sunday and decided to put out the lineup that he felt maximized the team’s potential to win. It wasn’t about making sure that Murray got his touches or that a veteran like Austin saw the field. Sunday’s win was by the team that could best carry out Kelly’s gameplan. It’s quite possible he’ll continue to face that dilemma every week for the rest of the season.