Santoliquito: Is Chip Done, If Eagles Don't Make Playoffs?
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — It has always lingered there since Chip Kelly first took the job as the Eagles head coach.
And that's been his return to college football.
If the Eagles don't make the playoffs this year, which they were projected to do for the second time in Kelly's third season yet have regressed, Kelly may not return for a fourth year in Philadelphia.
USC is waiting for the end of the NFL season and how this scenario plays out in Philadelphia. A number of major college football sources say that the school may be willing to pony up as much as $8-10 million to lure Kelly to Southern Cal, buying out the remainder of Kelly's contract and leaving the Eagles. The tolerance for Kelly, on and off the field, is wearing thin and he may no longer be able to protect himself behind the shield of winning and the promise of a Super Bowl in Philadelphia.
It's apparent Kelly can't deal with the strong personalities of pro superstars, and the attitude that his system can succeed without talented players is being exposed.
If Kelly doesn't come back, it may be a mutual decision. He likes to be the king of his kingdom and that's what he would be at USC. The college football world is a place where he can get away with his abrupt demeanor and talk down to players, because their future is in his hands. In today's NFL, my-way-or-the-highway works if you have won four Super Bowls like Bill Belichick or a Hall of Fame, old-school coach like Bill Parcells. Not if your team has gone 5-8 over its last 13 games and your offense—now your offense, not one filled with inherited players from the previous regime—can't line up correctly during a crucial November game that carries playoff implications.
Kelly's message to the Eagles after Sunday's 20-19 debacle against the Miami Dolphins was not to pout. It's rather easy to say if the wheels are in motion toward an exit plan if the Eagles collapse.
There are some irreversible facts: In the third year of Kelly's program, the Eagles were supposed to be better than this. They're going backwards and it appears the bug-eyed, deer-in-the-headlines look is becoming contagious on this team, which carries a collective uneven demeanor. The Eagles repeatedly make the same mistakes, and that can't be more pronounced than it was in the Miami loss. Kelly rarely assumes any responsibility for this. He's a firm believer that his system can succeed anywhere, with anyone running it.
Little details, responsibilities that fall unto the coach to drill into their players, get lost during the course of a game. The Eagles suffer from mass meltdowns. In the third year, that shouldn't happen. Blocked punts shouldn't happen (in consecutive weeks). The holding calls should be eliminated. They should be better on third downs. They're not. The Eagles started on Sunday going 4-for-4 on third downs in the first quarter and were 3 for 14 the rest of the game (7-for-18). They blew their largest first-quarter lead at home in seven years and Sunday's loss was the third time they squandered a fourth-quarter lead.
"We didn't play smart," Kelly admitted after the game.
At USC, Kelly won't have to worry about a talent drain. He won't have to worry about managing the salary cap and he won't to worry about deflating egos. He can go back to being Chip Kelly, "coaching genius." And Jeff Lurie can hit the reset button and shake his foot loose from the muddy puddle in which the Eagles find themselves.
