Things are not going well for the Philadelphia Eagles and head coach Chip Kelly. A woeful 1-3 start to the NFL season has exposed some of the warts in Kelly’s decision-making, more so as a general manager but also as a head coach. In his third season, despite winning 10 game sin each of his first two years in the league, Kelly is now being labeled a fraud and a failure in the NFL. In the past week I have heard members of the media say he will be coaching Texas next year or be heavily pursued to coach at USC. All of this is fascinating, considering Kelly still has a chance to win the NFC East and has never shown any signs of considering a return to the college game.
Earlier this week Buzz Bissinger attacked Kelly as a head coach and, erroneously, downplayed his previous work at Oregon. Bissinger’s sentiments have been shared by a number of growing skeptics of Kelly as head coach, although Bissinger brings a bit of venom in his commentary on the head coach of the Eagles.
“I don’t like him because he’s a fraud,” Bissinger said of Kelly on this week in a radio interview with Angelo Cataldi and the 94WIP Morning Show. “He’s a fraud because he gets ordained by the media, even now they’re too nice to him. He has no clue. No clue!”
It was just last year Bissinger was firing his shots at former Eagles quarterback Nick Foles and his personality. It is fair to suggest Kelly lacks a grasp on being a general manager, and maybe he is too stubborn when it comes to his coaching style, but it is fairly easy to contest a number of Bissinger’s complaints of Kelly, especially his track record at Oregon. Of course, Bissinger was hardly ther only media member commenting on Kelly this week.
On the other local sports radio station, 97.5 The Fanatic, afternoon drivetime host Mike Missanelli has said on more than one occassion Kelly would get $10 million to coach the Texas Longhorns. This, of course, is somewhat misguided. The Texas chatter comes because the Longhorns continue to struggle on the field, and many believe the Charlie Strong run could be cut short after just two seasons. I do not see that happening unless Texas ends the year with three wins. Texas is in the midst of finding a new athletics director, so it would see unwise to make a coaching change until the AD is put in place first. Texas paying $10 million for a head coach is also somewhat silly. Nick Saban is getting $6.5 million per year at Alabama. Urban Meyer is making that same total on average during his current contract. Texas can afford to pay whoever they want whatever they want, but the market would not yield $10 million for Chip Kelly. Not a chance, not when Texas would have to also buy out the contract of Strong.
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Now Dan Wolken of USA Today, on the heels of a Thursday night upset loss for the USC Trojans, is saying the Steve Sarkisian era at USC needs to end and the Trojans need to go all in on Chip Kelly.
“When Kelly inevitably returns to the college game, he will instantly have the credibility and cachet to recruit at an even higher level than he ever achieved at Oregon,” Wolken writes. “With the amount of skill in Southern California, USC would instantly return to its rightful place as the most feared program west of Texas.”
It’s true, USC is in need of a coach worthy and capable of reaching the full potential of USC and Sarkisian is not that guy. Kelly and USC would be a fascinating combination, and Wolken is correct in assuming Kelly would do great things at USC just as he did with Oregon. Kelly returning to the Pac-12 at USC would be eerily similar to Saban’s return to the SEC after a failed stint with the Miami Dolphins. After achieving success at LSU and a jump to the NFL, Saban returned to revive Alabama to be a national power. Kelly could, in theory, do something similar with USC, but the vibe still seems to suggest Kelly is content in the NFL and wants to succeed at this level.
Unless the Eagles go completely in the trash this season, Kelly’s not going anywhere. Jeff Lurie is all in on Kelly and he is not going to make any drastic changes after three years and one with Kelly as a GM.
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