Eagles head coach Chip Kelly made it clear that he doesn't intend to change his team's preparation for the Dallas Cowboys regardless of Tony Romo's availability.
Chip Kelly gave a brief behind the scenes glimpse of his office when he met with reporters Thursday at the Novacare Complex.
"We'll monitor the situation, but it's not like we have a ticker in the office with updates of who [The Cowboys] starting quarterback is," Kelly said.
So, fans who envisioned a ticker stretching across the sprawling coaches offices of the Eagles headquarters will be disappointed by Kelly's latest revelation.
The head coach was clearly half joking when he made the remark, but the moral of the statement was clear. Kelly, his coaching staff and the players have no intentions of altering their game plan for Sunday's winner-take-all showdown in Arlington against the Cowboys based upon who's under center for Dallas.
Much has been made of Tony Romo's herniated disc and the likelihood that backup Kyle Orton will be at quarterback for the Cowboys on Sunday night, but that has had little impact on the way the Eagles have gone about getting ready for the biggest test of Kelly's first jaunt through an NFL schedule.
This season Romo has completed 63.9% of his passes for 3,821 yards, 31 touchdowns, and ten interceptions including 317 yards, one touchdown and two picks against the Eagles when the teams first met back on October 20th at Lincoln Financial Field.
Despite the fact that the Eagles have already faced Romo once and Orton hasn't made a start since the 2011 season, the message emanating from One Novacare Way is that whoever is under center won't have any impact on how the defense does business on Sunday night.
"None," rookie standout defensive tackle Bennie Logan said when asked what changes will be made based on the Cowboys quarterback situation. "It doesn't change our game plan, doesn't change how we approach the game because regardless of who's playing quarterback they have a nice running game, they have good receivers and as long as whoever's at quarterback gets the ball into the playmaker's hands, at the end of the day we just have to play our style of football."
Kelly says that neither quarterback differs much in terms of their style of play for the Eagles to get caught off-guard as was the case against the Minnesota Vikings two weeks ago when Matt Cassel lit up the Eagles defense to the tune of 48 points and 455 yards of total offense.
"I don't think it changes their offense very much," Kelly pointed out. "They're going to run the ball with DeMarco Murray. Usually you'll see if there's a contrast in styles of quarterbacks, but Tony has 20 carries for 38 yards and I don't see Orton running 30 option plays against us. So, they'll probably do what they normally do."
In week 16 against a Bears team that has similar weapons in the form of Matt Forte, Jay Cutler, Alshon Jeffery, Brandon Marshall and Martellus Bennett, the Eagles defense stifled the Monsters of The Midway, holding the offense to 257 yards of total offense could be an indicator of where this team is right now against a multi-faceted offensive attack.
"Honestly, I feel like the game plan we have is going to work regardless of who's playing," Earl Wolff said. "As long as everybody does their job and executes, we'll be fine regardless of what they do."
Matt Lombardo is the Editor-In-Chief of Eagledelphia and also an on-air personality on 97.5 FM The Fanatic in Philadelphia. Join the conversation and follow Matt on Twitter.
