Beasley Reece: This Is Not Their Year
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Sports analyst and former NFL player Beasley Reece criticized Eagles Head Coach Chip Kelly in the aftermath of the team's loss in Washington for not making the necessary steps to put together a solid offensive line and blames that unit for the poor season many expect the team to now have following and 1-3 start.
Reece told Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that the offensive line is where any re-tooling should begin, and that Kelly neglected that part of the offense in the offseason.
"This is not their year. I say that if you're going to turn a team around, and you address all the defensive issues and you find the guy that you think is going to be your quarterback and you change the style of your running back by making a trade and then making a signing, you're doing all these things, you have one thing left to do and that is to use a lot assets on the offensive line. If you can't do it all at one time, the one place that I disagree with Chip Kelly is the order in which he rebuilt this team."
He emphatically believes the team will not get better until changes are made along the line.
"If they don't fix the offensive line, they won't go anywhere. They're not going to go anywhere with this offensive line. Now Jason Peters is hurt. What do you think Jason Peters is going to do? Get healthy right quick and get better? At his age? No. He's going to be more susceptible to injury. He's going to decline, normal decline of a big, big man, aging in his career. Lane Johnson and [Jason] Kelce are going to get better. They need two new guards and they need to Jason Peter's heir apparent on the team and they should've done it last draft."
Reece also does not believe that giving Kelly more control over roster decisions is the reason for the downturn, and said every successful team has a similar management structure.
"All of the top coaches are also the General Manager. I don't care what the titles say, the guy that was in the last two Super Bowls in Seattle, he's also the General Manager...Name me the Patriots General Manager. They have a General Manager, but he's not some famous guy out there because he's, basically, doing what Bill Belichick requires him to do."