3 reasons the Philadelphia Eagles are crazy to dismiss Chip Kelly
The Philadelphia Eagles made official on Tuesday evening what most have been expecting for some time by dismissing head coach Chip Kelly before the final game of the season. The move was widely lauded because there's no sugarcoating what happened -- things got really ugly in Philly under Kelly in the past year.
But as the conversation now moves to who could be the next coach for the Eagles, it's worth asking this question: What if dismissing Kelly as coach (not GM) of the Eagles is actually not the best move for the franchise? What if a restructuring of responsibilities in the organization is a much better move?
It's clear Kelly didn't handle the personnel duties well, but it's not clear at all that he can't or won't be a very good NFL head coach. Here are three reasons why the Eagles might be crazy for running him off.
1. In context, Kelly's record is actually impressive
Kelly went 26-21 in almost three full seasons with the Eagles. The NFL Network's James Palmer points out that's the best record in the NFC East since he came on the job.
Kelly's 26 victories in the first three seasons of his NFL career are more than a number of guys who went on to become great head coaches in the NFL. Bill Belichick won 20 games in his first three seasons with Cleveland. Tom Coughlin won 24 games in his first three seasons with Jacksonville. Chuck Noll won 12 games in his first three seasons with Pittsburgh. Bill Parcells won 22 games in his first three seasons with the Giants. Tom Landry won nine games in his first three seasons with Dallas (in fact, in SIX seasons with the Cowboys he won only 25 total games). Jimmy Johnson won 19 games in his first three seasons with Dallas.
You get the point. And look, this isn't to compare Kelly to any of those guys or say he's assured of winning one Super Bowl as an NFL head coach, let alone several, and becoming an all-time great pro coach. The point is to underscore how HARD it is to win at the outset of an NFL head coaching career. The fact Kelly did that while basically lighting his roster on fire is, in a backwards way, kind of more impressive. Again, Kelly the GM was bad. Kelly the head coach accomplished quite a bit.
2. The Eagles don't exactly have a history of great coaches
Greasy Neale went 63-43-5 and won two championships in the '40s. Buck Shaw went 19-16-1 in three seasons but won his only playoff game -- the 1960 championship. Dick Vermeil went 54-47 (3-4 in the postseason) from 1976-82. Buddy Ryan had a .544 winning percentage in 79 games from '86-90. Rich Kotite went 36-28 in the early '90s. And, of course, Andy Reid has by far the most wins in franchise history (130-93) and led the Eagles to a Super Bowl appearance.
Kelly's .553 winning percentage trails only Neale, Kotite and Reid in franchise history, and again, see point No. 1. Kelly is just starting his career and did not help himself by trying to serve two different roles. What are the odds the Eagles actually get a better coach than Kelly? Not very good, which leads us to the third point.
3. Firing Kelly without trying to resolve the personnel situation first is a mistake
Kelly told FOX Sports' Jay Glazer on Tuesday evening, "I don't want to go somewhere and be the GM. ... I just want to go coach somewhere, somewhere where there's a GM and a personnel guy and I can just coach again." Eagles chairman Jeffrey Lurie said at his press conference Wednesday that he didn't offer Kelly the opportunity to stay with the Eagles and not be the GM. Why not?
The NFL has taught us that two things truly matter to have success: head coach and quarterback. Both are extremely rare to find, which begs the question: Why get rid of one of those elements if there's any possibility you have a keeper? The reports of players not "trusting" Kelly probably have more to do with his inability to handle roster management than his ability to coach. If a seasoned personnel man were put in place and Kelly got to focus only on coaching again, would there be trust issues? Doubt it. Kelly's "abrasiveness," whatever it might be, is not a good reason to bail on the potential of a very good head coach. The last team to bail on an abrasive coach was the 49ers, and nobody can argue they're a better football team without Jim Harbaugh.
Kelly will land somewhere else -- possibly in Tennessee with his old quarterback Marcus Mariota. Wherever he goes, he probably will be successful because both he and that organization will have learned that nobody can handle both jobs of GM and head coach. Why couldn't Philly have been that organization?
Teddy Mitrosilis works in social content development at FOX Sports Digital. Follow him on Twitter @TMitrosilis and email him at tmitrosilis@gmail.com.
