The Philadelphia Eagles finalized their roster this week, polished their trickiest schemes in closed practices and got ready for the season to actually begin. The Eagles are 10.5 point favorites at home against the Jacksonville Jaguars, led by quarterback Chad Henne. Older fans will remember Chip Kelly’s second game as Oregon’s offensive coordinator in 2007 when the Ducks crushed the …
OK, it’s getting serious now. And Cody Parkey (above) is smiling. The Eagles cut down to 76 players days ahead of the Tuesday deadline and handled it with class. (Their final cut to 75 was an injury waiver for backup center Julian Vandervelde on cut day.) Final cuts to 53 players are due by tomorrow (Saturday). The early releases were …
The Philadelphia Eagles have gone through the entire off-season with no roster changes at all. Then boom! Heading into preseason Game 3, Chip Kelly and GM Howie Roseman moved decisively. First they released Jason Phillips, a special teams ace who never came back from an ACL tear. Then the team traded a conditional 7th-round draft pick for former Oregon star Kenjon Barner, …
The opening skirmish in Chip Kelly’s 2014 NFL season took place last Friday, and while the results weren’t pretty — especially with the starting offensive line — the team showed a glimpse of its potential. The final score doesn’t really matter — it was a 28-24 loss to the Chicago Bears — but the engine of the offense was clearly …
The Eagles begin preseason play against Chicago tonight, and the results don’t matter one bit — for the standings. Chip Kelly told a press conference that the starters will probably only play 10-15 snaps, as long as they look reasonably competent. (If they go three and out more than once, they’ll have to stay in a bit longer.) But these …
Wow. After weeks of dull silence, there was an explosion of Chip Kelly news this week. The somewhat reclusive coach went over the head of the local press and swept national football reporters off their feet, while his players improved, fought and generally created genuine excitement. As near as anyone can remember, Chip has given only a single one-on-one print interview …
There is really only one month a year that NFL football is not happening, and it just ended. Players returned for the start of training camp today, and reporters returned from their vacations on Monday with a bunch of interesting articles. NFL referees returned, too, and ate a bit of crow. A year ago, they insisted that no new coach was …
Chip Kelly and the Eagles did better last year than anyone but the biggest Eagles homer imagined. One big disappointment, though, was special teams performance. This is puzzling because, by all accounts, Kelly put a lot more effort into STs last year than Andy Reid ever did. He added some players (such as Jason Phillips) to the roster primarily for their special …
Football fans are stuck in the doldrums, and with no wind in their sails, they’re just waiting for the endless (month-long) break between mini-camp and training camp to end. Luckily you have us football writers, struggling furiously to generate enough hot air to fill those sails. Chip Kelly’s Eagles finished spring workouts full of smiles, with no drama (after the DeSean Jackson release and …
Mandatory mini-camp is in session for three days of open-to-the-press practices, and there’s a sudden flood of information in the blogs and newspapers. It’s not really any different than the last three weeks of OTAs (organized team activities), though. “Mandatory” doesn’t mean much, for one thing, since the Eagles had 100% turnout at the voluntary OTAs. Safety Ed Reynolds was …
It will be three months until real regular season football games begin, but the Philadelphia Eagles are at least doing something again. Phase 3 of the off-season program — the organized team activities or OTAs — began last week, with actual offense-against-defense drills and all the famous Chip Kelly practice twists: blaring music, extreme speed and innovative, often goofy practice devices. Only a …
The long, slow, dull days of winter are over and Chip Kelly’s Eagles are crackling with activity. He drafted a solid if unflashy group of players (including Ducks Josh Huff and Taylor Hart), added a number of UDFAs (such as a savage-tackling kicker nicknamed “Murderleg”) and wielded some innovative technologies that caused a stir around the league. Better yet, Chip’s …