Philadelphia Eagles

Bill Belichick backs Chip Kelly, calls firing 'disappointing'

Published Dec. 31, 2015 9:52 a.m. ET

foxsports

When it comes to the Philadelphia Eagles firing Chip Kelly after three seasons, most people either love the move or hate it. On one hand, he's a forward-thinking coach who tried to bring his own spin to the NFL from his days at Oregon. But it didn't work, and many still believe he'll get another shot in the league and will succeed at the highest level.

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is one of those people.

"Chip's a great coach. He'll end up somewhere, and he'll do a great job there," Belichick said via CSNNE.com.

The Patriots head coach also called Kelly's firing "disappointing."

"Yeah, I would say it's actually disappointing," Belichick said. "Chip Kelly to me is a really good football coach. He does a great job. I think he's done a good job with that team. It's disappointing to see, you know, Josh [McDaniels] in Denver ... There's a lot of examples. But pretty much everybody's on a one-year contract in this league. I don't know how you build a program in one year."

Belichick didn't build the Patriots in one year, either, but it didn't take him long to start a winning tradition. In his first season with New England, he won five games. The next year, he took the Patriots to the Super Bowl and won it. Since then, he's won double-digit games every season except for one -- 2002.

Kelly won 10 games in each of his first two seasons but veered off in the third, when he made big personnel changes and was only able to win six games. With those changes came big-name players being shipped out of Philadelphia.

Though, "I'd say a lot of the players that were on the Eagles that are no longer on the Eagles aren't really doing too much for anybody else, either," Belichick stated.

There's little doubt Kelly will get another shot at the helm — the Tennessee Titans, with Kelly's coveted former Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, have been tossed around as a possible landing spot. Bringing the two back together could revive Kelly's career and take him to another level.