By Theodore N. Beitchman
Chip Kelly has been the Eagles coach since January 2013 — almost 20 months now — but the local media morons are still judging him by the standards of his predecessor, slow and steady and boring Andy Reid.
They somehow have missed that he is smarter than Reid (left in above photo with Kelly), quicker on his feet (literally and metaphorically) and three or four steps ahead of the media pack.
Take last Saturday for instance.
Puh-leeeeeze!
Kelly was watching college football as teams across the NFL were in the final stages of trimming their rosters to the league mandated 53 players.
Kelly was in attendance at the Ohio State vs. Navy game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore — 95 miles away — Saturday afternoon rather than in the Novacare Complex bunker along with the front office personnel.
However, the media wanted to know Kelly’s whereabouts and, according to general manager Howie Roseman, the heavy leg-work had already been done on Friday long before Kelly took the trip down I-95 South for the game.
“We cut everyone yesterday,” Roseman told reporters Saturday afternoon. Coach [Kelly] met with every single one of those players, he had communication with every one of those players face to face, which he always does.
“He’s phenomenal in that regard in terms of meeting with our players and discussing things and then he knew, he knew everything that was going on throughout the day. There was constant communication, he’s watched a bunch of guys and these conversations don’t happen overnight, he’s infinitely prepared for where we’re going nad what we’re looking at right now. There aren’t a lot of surprises and if there are they are on the waiver wire and we have until 12:00 tomorrow and its our job as a personnel staff to funnel the information down and get it in a reasonable format. There’s no one who should be watching 35 guys between now and tomorrow”
One of the key aspects of the final hours Saturday that lead up to the 4 p.m. deadline to trim the rosters is the possibility to make trades with teams for players who currently fill bottom of the depth chart positions. Even though Kelly was watching the Buckeyes wax the Midshipmen 34-17, Roseman insisted that Kelly was completely in the loop should any surprise moves be made across the league.
“He is involved in all that,” Roseman explained. “We have been in constant communication today. He is totally involved. We did make all of our cuts [Friday] and today is a lot of waiting around. There is a cut list and a lot of the leg work we had on any conversation was already done. If someone’s calling you at 1:00 today and saying ‘hey, do you want to trade for player X,’ I’d say no.
“We’ve had conversations with 31 other teams and are aware of it. That doesn’t mean there won’t be a surprise in the next 24 hours and Chip’s done a lot of work on all of these guys.”
Kelly arrived back at One Novacare Way shortly before 5 p.m. Saturday and undoubtedly the work now begins with the front office scouring the waiver wire for players that may have slipped through the cracks of cut down day.
Another example of fighting the last war, guys. Chip Kelly is here and he knows what he’s doing. Get over it.
