Chip Kelly On Vikings Loss: 'If I Was A Fan, I'd Be Frustrated Too'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The Eagles were on top of the world. Winners of five in a row, their quarterback on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and heading into a game against an inferior opponent who was missing their best player. They were primed for a big win, and keeping a stranglehold on the NFC East lead.
It didn't quite work out like they planned. The Eagles defense was carved up by Matt Cassel, the offense was imprescise and without rhythm, and the Eagles lost to the Vikings, 48-30.
"[The fans] can't feel any worse than I feel. They should be critical, we lost. You get judged on a weekly basis," Kelly told Angelo Cataldi and the 94WIP Morning Show on Monday. "O think people make fun of me when I say this is a one week deal. It is a one week deal, here's a prime example of it. When we're playing well everybody loves you and all these other things and when you're playing poor no one likes you. That's what---this situation that we're in, we put ourselves in this situation. I don't blame them, if I was a fan I'd be frustrated too. We should have played better and we didn't and that's what this deal is. That's why it's a one week deal. One week you're going to feel like you're on top of the world and one week you're going to feel like the world is on top of you. And so be it, do something about it, and that's what we'll do when we get back to work on Tuesday."
The next test for the Eagles will be a tougher one, on Sunday night against the Bears. The Chicago defense has been unimpressive, but the offense has been a different story, putting points on the board no matter who the quarterback has been.
"It's extremely disappointing. I thought we did some things uncharacteristically of what we've done recently. We've got to figure out how do we fix it and get ready to play Chicago this Sunday," Kelly said.
There were some questionable decisions by the Eagles in Sunday's game, including the one to kick the ball short on kickoffs, avoiding star returner Cordarrelle Patterson. Kelly defended his decision to keep it away from Patterson.
"We've got the most dynamic returner in the league [Cordarrelle Patterson], that's averaged over 34 yards a return. He's returned two for touchdowns, one of them he took out from 109 yards deep," Kelly said. "We could not---watching Alex [Henery] kick pre game and at half time, he was not putting the ball out of the end zone so they were going to be returned. Aside from really the last time, which came out to the 46, we ended up---their average start line was 29.8 when Cordarrelle returns it and their average start in our game, besides the onsides kick, was the 33.6 yard line. So we gave up 3.3 yards."
