Coming off a 39-17 victory Sunday, Chip Kelly is 22-16 in his Philadelphia Eagles' tenure thus far.
 Hmmm ... It seems those Chip Kelly-back-to-college stories will have to retreat to the shelves for another couple weeks. That’s the type of stability beating a crap-ass team in the NFL, crappier, in fact, than even your own, can create. Win, no matter who it is you beat, or how you do it, and the feel-goods return, or at least enough of ’em do, so that you don’t have to worry about job security – be that for the employee or the employer. Let’s keep it real here. Kelly ain’t going anywhere for a long time, unless he chooses to do so. Yes, it’s true, after years of watching his talk of multiple championships become the stuff of mockery due to consistently mediocre efforts, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie finally found the inner resolve to relieve Andy Reid of his duties as head coach. After all the hemming and hawing, and hope-driven procrastination, he did pull the trigger. That much can be said. But it took a long, loooooooong damn time … and, with it, by performing that singular act of letting Reid go, he admitted he had never found that Super Bowl-winning coach after all. Enter Kelly. As the most ballyhooed coaching figure this side of Bill Belichick and that side of Nick Saban, he was a statement hire. He was the Eagles’ main target, not to mention the main target of other squads searching for that latest magic man to wave his wand and make all things right, and they got him. They even got him cloak-and-dagger style, whereby at the very moment the deal seemed dead, it happened. Pure Hollywood. Right up Lurie’s avenue. Thing is, by doing so, and then later ripping GM duties right out of the hands of his right-hand man man Howie Roseman and giving them to Kelly, Lurie actually one-upped himself in the get-coach, create-monster lab. Only this Frankencoach isn’t as mind-numbingly PC as the last one. As the team limped out of the gate 1-3, the fans and Philly media started getting restless. The torches may not have been lit en masse, but a few of them were out there, with the likelihood of an exponential expansion followed by a nighttime march down Broad Street to the NovaCare Center had the Birds lost Sunday at home to the woeful New Orleans Saints. In a different year, with a different Drew Brees at the visitors’ controls, all that may have come to fruition, and, honestly, it may have been comical to watch. But, never happened. The 39-17 victory was about as easy as one of Kelly’s Pac-12 runaways during his days at Oregon. Wouldn’t have mattered to Lurie anyway. It wouldn’t have mattered to anyone in his shoes. Not when you’ve invested so much in one individual, stuck with them until an end had passed bitter, and then invested even more in his successor. No, Lurie’s Eagles are married to Kelly for as long as he can handle any heat that comes his way, regardless of wins or losses. Or until a better job comes up, at least one he deems better – and better gigs than a $6.5 million per year NFL deal are few and far between. Oh, what’s that, Southern Cal is looking for a new coach now? Hmmm … - Jack Kerwin | ydkjack1@gmail.com | |
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