Eagles head coach Chip Kelly brought a breath of fresh air to the Philadelphia Eagles in just his first season after the franchise fell victim to the staleness of the final years under Andy Reid.
As the sting of Saturday's NFC Wild Card loss to the New Orleans Saints continues to fade away, it's difficult to view Chip Kelly's first season at the helm of the Philadelphia Eagles as anything short of a rousing success.
The numbers almost speak for themselves, but the Eagles winning the NFC East and hosting a playoff game in Kelly's first year is about as dramatic a turnaround as anyone could have expected coming on the heels of the 4-12 disaster that typified the final years of Andy Reid's 14-year regime.
Before we get to just how dynamic the offense wound up finishing, it's worth looking at the macro-picture. The Eagles won two fewer games this season (10) than they did the previous two seasons combined (12) and in the process, Kelly laid the groundwork for what could very well turn into a successful run for years to come.
The Eagles rode a 7-1 finish in the second half after many spent the first four weeks focused on where this team would be selecting in May's NFL draft amid a 1-3 start.
Along the way, the Eagles found their franchise quarterback in the form of Nick Foles who tossed a total of 29 touchdowns, including two in his first playoff appearance, and just two interceptions while finishing as the most efficient quarterback in the league. Foles' success allows the Eagles to fast-forward the process and alleviates the burden of needing to mine the crap-shoot of the draft for a franchise signal caller.
LeSean McCoy won the rushing crown while setting a franchise record for rushing yards and scrimmage yards in a single season and he did it behind an offensive line that not only started all 16 games alongside one another but made Evan Mathis and Jason Peters All-Pros in the process.
Defensively it certainly was a tale of two halves for this team.
Coordinator Bill Davis Jr and his unit took their lumps early on but wound up the year holding 10 of their final 12 opponents to 21 points or fewer, which is below the league scoring average. And they did it amid sweeping changes from a 4-3 alignment to a 3-4 front, without a full compliment of personnel suited to execute that scheme.
Young players such as Bennie Logan, Brandon Boykin, Cedric Thornton and Mychal Kendricks flourished this season which lends plenty of optimism to what this team could accomplish on that side of the ball next season when the learning curve will be significantly smaller from a schematic standpoint.
"I feel like we can build a lot off of the second half," linebacker DeMeco Ryans said on getaway day Monday. "We definitely started to play well, play better and like we wanted to play. We can still improve on that and really become a dominant defense.
"Coach Davis really built a solid foundation for our defense and everybody here really has that foundation set for our defense. Going into the offseason I feel like we can get better on top of what we already built."
On the whole, Kelly changed the culture around the Novacare Complex. Much has been made of the sports science he implemented this season and it's impact is clearly illustrated by this team not placing a player on injured reserve once the regular season kicked off in September.
But where Kelly had his greatest victory this season was building his system around his players and adapting along the way, rather than taking the steadfast and stubborn approach that many successful coaches fall into.
"I had a system and a plan that we were going to go in," Kelly explained Monday. "But I didn't know what the outcome was going to be until it was all finished. But I think we played sound fundamental football, and I think that's what we preach on a daily basis to our players, and I think it's still a game of 11 on 11, and I think a lot of things we do schematically match up 11 on 11 and it's a fundamental game and I think that's what our coaches teach. I thought we brought in a bunch of really good teachers that could implement the plan that we had in place and we felt this would be the best plan for us this year going forward.
"I'm going to qualify this, and I think there was so much misconception of that. It's not my offense, it's the Philadelphia Eagles' offense, and it was put together by a bunch of guys on our staff that are really smart that played to our players' strengths, and that's what it's all about. If we have a different set of players, then the offense would look different, and this offense didn't look like it looked when it was at Oregon, but I'm not at Oregon, but our offense at Oregon looked different every year depending on the personnel we had. I've said it since day one: It's a personnel‑driven sport, and I think the coaches that adapt."
Kelly did just that in his first season and in the process brought excitement and relevancy back to a franchise that had slipped into staleness in recent years.
With $17 million in cap space to spend this off-season, it will be fascinating to watch Kelly mold this roster to further fit what he hopes to accomplish within his system and how the scheme itself evolves heading into the second year as he contnues to add the players best fit for him.
What is truly rare in Philadelphia is the fact that the sting of a playoff defeat can lend so much optimism about the future.
But that is the case with this team and this head coach, especially when the roster he is cultivating finished the year as one of the youngest in the league.
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.
