5 Surprising Eagles-Related Quotes From NFL Owners' Meetings
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Jeffrey Lurie and Chip Kelly and Doug Pederson. Oh my.
All three spoke in a matter of two days -- Kelly and Pederson simultaneously on Wednesday morning -- at the 2016 NFL owners' meetings in Boca Raton, Florida.
With Kelly now in San Francisco and Pederson taking over as the Eagles' head coach, there was plenty to talk about. Here are the top-five most surprising, or revealing, quotes.
5. Lurie To Chip: Sink Or Swim
Lurie: "Let [Chip Kelly] be responsible for all the decisions that he wanted to inject and make."
"I think it was a necessary way to go to find out if Chip was the right guy," Lurie said via CSNPhilly.com. "Let him be responsible for all the decisions that he wanted to inject and make. No question I have that it was the right way to dissect if Chip was going to be the right guy going forward or not. We dissected it and decided with all of the great things he brought, he wasn't the right person going forward. And it was helpful for him to be accountable for those decisions so we could move on in a great way."
It's almost as if Lurie wanted a reason to fire Kelly and was hoping he'd fail. Which, by the way, is exactly what CBSPhilly.com's Joe Santoliquito reported last week.
4. Now You Tell Us!
Kelly: "I would have been content to just go hire a general manager."
"We met after the season and discussed what was going on," Kelly said via NJ.com. "It ultimately [Lurie's] decision. But I didn't ask for anything…I would have been content to just go hire a general manager."
If Jeffrey Lurie would have simply hired a general manager to run personnel decisions and let Chip Kelly remain as head coach -- something he was fairly good at -- everything may have been different.
3. Play Calling: Pederson --> Frank Reich --> Sam Bradford
Doug Pederson says he expects to have Frank Reich on the field (not press box). Pederson will call plays, relay to Reich, who relays to QB.
— Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) March 23, 2016
Exactly how they did it in Kansas City, according to Pederson. Shouldn't be too many delay of game penalties or frustrating timeouts. GULP.
2. Maxwell, Murray Contract's Were Howie's Fault?
Kelly: "I have never negotiated a contract in my life. I had nothing to do with any contract."
Chip Kelly says Howie Roseman negotiated the Maxwell and Murray contracts. #eagles
— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) March 23, 2016
So we've been praising Roseman for getting rid of the bloated contracts that he orchestrated in the first place? Great.
Conspiracy Theory: Roseman purposely signed DeMarco Murray and Byron Maxwell to bloated contracts to get Kelly fired.
1. This Was Our Plan All Along
Lurie: "The whole plan was for Howie to really spend the time studying state of the art decision making around the globe in sports."
Roseman told SI.com's Peter King, "That in his time away from a position of influence with the Eagles last year, he learned about the business of sport and the cultivation and development of players from franchise-runners in the NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL and the English Premier League."
The plan: Force your head coach, after two straight 10-6 seasons, to assume control of personnel by firing his ally in the front-office -- Tom Gamble. Then, demote Howie Roseman and send him into exile for a year to learn about "the art of decision making around the globe in sports." After 15 games (6-9), fire the coach / now pseudo-GM (who is now 26-21 as an NFL head coach, by the way) and re-give Roseman control of personnel power.
Got it.