Cowherd: Thanks To Kelly, Eagles Are Most Improved NFL Team
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- He was awarded complete personnel control after just two years as an NFL coach. With those powers, he overhauled the roster. And with those players, he started the 2015 season 0-2. And then 1-3.
He is Chip Kelly, and everyone was crushing him.
Now, after two straight double-digit win seasons, he's 3-3. One of the lone national voices who has stuck by Kelly is Colin Cowherd of FOX Sports, who did more of the same on Tuesday.
"By the way coaching is teaching and good teachers make students smart and better," Cowherd said on his podcast (1:39 mark). "And good coaches make players better. For all you Chip Kelly critics out there, Philadelphia won again last night. Name an NFL team that has improved more than Philadelphia in the last month. There's not an NFL team that looked so bad five weeks ago and now can win their division."
Cowherd went on to compare Kelly to two powerful, innovative companies.
"But the problem is, Chip Kelly is Uber," Cowherd said. "He is Netflix. He is a disruptor and people don't like disruptors.
"He is what Netflix has done to television and movies. He is what Uber did to the taxi company. And guys, generally, are creatures of havoc. Forty percent of Americans never leave their home town, they're comfortable. They like the grocery store. They like the stop light. They like to know the roads. They like their high school buddies. So Chip Kelly comes in and it's like I'm gonna change the game."
Finally, Cowherd went back to the start of Kelly's NFL career, praising him for back-to-back 10-win seasons with limited talent.
"32 NFL teams. Name one that's averaged double-digit wins with mediocre quarterbacks in the last decade," Cowherd challenged. "Let's start with zero. He went 10-6 with Michael Vick and [Nick] Foles. Then he went 10-6 with Foles and [Mark] Sanchez. You go look at the double digit wins the last several years the quarterbacks are [Aaron] Rodgers, [Tom] Brady, Peyton Manning. OK? Big Ben.
"You critics---this guy is absolutely fantastic," he continued. "No team in this league has been coached up in the last month more than Philadelphia, a totally flawed team for the record. No wide receiving corps, average quarterback play."
