Santoliquito: Has Chip Kelly Lost The City?
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Players talk. That's a fact. And the way news travels in real-nanosecond time through social media, so do fans.
Everyone wanted something more to happen on Tuesday. Nothing did.
"In Chip Kelly we trust" is gone. Kelly is now faced with a crossroads season in just his third year in the NFL. He was once viewed as a guru and in a week's time transformed into a pariah among some circle of players while disenfranchising the Eagles' fervent fanbase in the process.
It is Kelly's own doing. Someone apparently hasn't told Emperor Chip he has no clothes on.
Trading LeSean McCoy last week was just an inkling of how Kelly was reshaping the Eagles into a NFC East bottom dweller. He topped himself on Tuesday by trading a younger, more–efficient, financially solvent Nick Foles for injury-prone Sam Bradford, who has missed 31 of 80 games with the St. Louis Rams over the last five years because of two torn ACLs.
If anyone thinks Bradford is a bargaining chip for the Eagles to move up in the draft to grab Marcus Mariota are fooling themselves. Do you really think Tennessee, the New York Jets, Chicago, or anyone else wants Sam Bradford?
Has Kelly's staunch belief in himself that he's "the quarterback whisperer" enough to rejuvenate Bradford into who he was when he came out of Oklahoma?
It was obvious Kelly had no faith in Foles. But to take a risk on Bradford, an injury waiting to happen—and part with a fourth-round pick this year and a second-round pick next year doesn't seem to make much sense. And then kneecap the team with Bradford's $12.9 million salary?
What's more is that word is spreading among NFL players that apparently Kelly is a tough coach to play for. One NFC source stated that Kelly thinks he's a college coach—a benevolent dictator type who still hasn't adjusted to the egos of NFL players, and that he hasn't built the kind of cache someone like Bill Belichick has to demand the kind of respect NFL coaches get.
Other sources feel Kelly is so biased toward former Oregon players that the Eagles should be renamed the Oregon East Eagles.
The blaring red flag is when Frank Gore changed his mind from signing with the Eagles to taking slightly more money and a greater chance of winning in Indianapolis. But there is a strong possibility that Gore also spoke to McCoy and other former Eagles about what it was like playing for Kelly.
It's more than just a little more money that swayed Jeremy Maclin to sign with the Kansas City Chiefs. It was playing for a "player's coach" like Andy Reid again—and Maclin, by all accounts, had a good relationship with Kelly.
Since Kelly has arrived, he's done everything to remake the Eagles as "his team." DeSean Jackson has been cut, McCoy traded, Maclin lost to free agency, and Foles traded for a quarterback with one good knee.
Somewhere you can imagine Howie Roseman with his feet up on a desk, puffing on a cigar and counting down the days until he has his old job back.
