… or is it? After weeks of despair and dissension, the 4-7 Philadelphia Eagles rallied to stun the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, 35-28. Chip Kelly outsmarted coaching legend Bill Belichick in their first head-to-head battle. Sam Bradford returned from injury and outdueled uber-QB Tom Brady, playing efficient, error-free football. Best of all, on Monday night the discarded DeSean …
To be canonized as an official Roman Catholic Saint, you need to have produced at least two verified miracles. The New Orleans Saints got their first on Sunday, miraculously healing the crippled Eagles offense and blessing them with 39 points. It would have been 53 except for two inexcusably bad passes by QB Sam Bradford that were intercepted in the …
In his first two years as an NFL coach, Chip Kelly was a whirlwind of change, challenging the conventional wisdom on everything from players’ food to game tempo to the team schedule (giving his team Monday off after Sunday games instead of the usual Tuesday). And while Kelly’s “college boy” style was mocked at first, much of the NFL has …
In one of his more ridiculous commentaries, one of many delivered over the years, ESPN First Take host Stephen A. Smith seemed to suggest current Philadelphia Eagles head coach and former University of Oregon head coach Chip Kelly is a racist, or has racist motives in how he structures the team. Nor did Smith keep this offensive suggestion simple and short: …
Stephen A. Smith, co-host of ESPN’s First Take and host of the Stephen A. Smith Show on Sirius XM, defended his comments concerning Eagles’ head coach Chip Kelly’s personnel decisions and the overall culture in Philadelphia, saying he did not call Kelly a racist. Smith explained his comments on his radio show : “… a bunch of idiots, in the world …
Chip Kelly doesn’t just want his skill players to have speed. He places a high premium on athletic offensive linemen who can execute their blocks both at the line of scrimmage and in space. It is easy to see how Lane Johnson‘s rare athletic ability convinced Kelly to select the Oklahoma offensive tackle with the fourth overall pick last year. …
It was Dec. 1, 2013. With the score at 7-7 in the second quarter, the Philadelphia Eagles marched to the Arizona Cardinals’ 6-yard line. It was at this moment when Chip Kelly unveiled a surprising wrinkle. If Nick Foles was there, who was lined up as quarterback? Meet Brad Smith. …
It’s only year two of the Chip Kelly era in Philadelphia, and the Eagles have already overhauled their receiver group. They released three-time Pro Bowler DeSean Jackson and veteran slot receiver Jason Avant. They re-signed Riley Cooper and Jeremy Maclin. Then, they traded up in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft to select Vanderbilt’s Jordan Matthews, but the front …
The NFL off season is completely different than college football’s in one significant way: the NFL team gets to pick its players through the draft, the trade and free agency, and fans get to speculate endlessly over who they should or shouldn’t choose. For a college team, it’s more like being an old-fashioned high school girl at a dance, trying …
feature photo by Jimmy Kempski Training camp finally opened for the entire Eagles team, and Chip Kelly faced adversity almost immediately. First, injuries: not one but TWO ACL tears in the first three days, by #2 receiver Jeremy Maclin and newly acquired linebacker Jason Phillips. Maclin is a big deal for the Eagles, despite criticism for softness (some call him “self-tackling”); …