Patrick Causey, on Twitter @PhillySportsPMC
"Here’s the big question: Do you want to play it safe and be good, or do you want to take a chance and be great? If you’re not afraid to fail, you can do some great things in this league. But most people are afraid to fail, so they play it safe. I always liked to take risks because I was always confident in my abilities. I think—no, I know—Chip is confident in his abilities, too.”
Most NFL coaches coming off consecutive 10-6 seasons would play it safe the following offseason: sign a big name free agent to fill a pressing need, build through the draft, and avoid major roster and coaching turnover. With a little help from lady luck, maybe things would break just right so they could get over the hump and to the promised land.
That's what we have come to expect in today's NFL. Because that is how it has always been done.
But Chip Kelly is not like most NFL coaches.
Kelly took a buzzsaw to a team with the eight most wins in the NFL over the last two seasons combined. I have criticized some of the moves Kelly has made because they seemed like unnecessary risks.
But that does not mean I don't admire what Kelly has done.
In a league where playing it safe means increased job security, I admire Kelly for being bold enough, being confident enough, and having enough testicular fortitude to swing for the fences instead of being satisfied with a double.
Several articles this offseason, including our own, have touched on a bedrock principle to which Kelly ascribes: he targets players with a "growth mindset." That is a fancy way of saying that he wants players who are never satisfied. Kelly wants a player that will catch 8 balls for 125 yards and a touchdown, but spend an hour after the game watching film and fixating on that one pass that was dropped.
After reviewing this offseason with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that Kelly practices what he preaches. This entire offseason is that philosophy being put into action.
Kelly could have kept this team intact. Resigned Jeremy Maclin, kept LeSean McCoy and Nick Foles. Maybe sign Byron Maxwell and Devin McCourty and add an offensive lineman high in the draft.
No one would have criticized him for playing it safe. In fact, those roster moves likely would have been met with universal praise.
But as Kelly recently stated, last season's team "wasn't close at the end of the year" to winning a championship: "10-6, not going to the playoffs, is just like being 4-12."
Kelly knew he had to make dramatic changes to the team in order to achieve the success he craved.
So after he obtained control of the roster, Kelly reached out for advice to a former coach to whom he is often compared. A successful college coach who took the NFL by storm more than 20 years ago with a new way of doing things and a brashness and self-confidence that many thought at the time was destined to fail: Jimmy Johnson.
When Johnson reshaped the Cowboys roster, he did so through unconventional means: he made over 50 trades at a time when the league barely traded at all. His most infamous trade, of course, was the Herschel Walker deal that at the time was pegged as a deal that tilted heavily in favor of the Minnesota Vikings. Now? The trade goes down as one of the all-time fleecings in NFL history, for the Dallas Cowboys.
So Johnson knew a thing or two about the skepticism that Kelly was facing. And as Peter King at Monday Morning Quarterback detailed, Johnson had quietly become a mentor to Kelly this offseason, speaking several times about what it takes to be a successful NFL head coach.
Kelly left an impression.
“I am a fan of Chip Kelly," Johnson said, “and I will be a fan of Chip Kelly’s until he proves me wrong. I love his offense, I love his style, I love the nutrition stuff, love his practice schedule, love how he turns over the roster."
Perhaps the most important aspect of their conversations — Johnson refused to disclose most of it citing Kelly's preference for confidentiality — was the dramatic roster turnover Kelly was planning. Asked if he knew that Kelly was about to shake things up at the NovaCare Complex, Johnson replied: "Oh yeah. The last conversation was over an hour, going over everything. He was loading his guns."
Kelly and Johnson discussed the need for making bold moves, taking risks, and not being afraid of failure. It requires someone with confidence and the clout within the organization to call all the shots: “When you have one guy making the decisions—like I was in Dallas or Miami, like Bill Belichick is in New England, and now like Chip is—you don’t have a lot of devil’s advocates. You don’t have a lot of people who work for you second-guessing you. If you have a committee involved in the decision-making, 95% of the time, you’re going to be conservative. There’s always going to be one person saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know about this,’ or, ‘Wait, let’s think about that.’ When one guy makes the decision, you take chances. That’s what Chip has done this year."
So Kelly took bold steps to reshape the roster in his image. He traded Nick Foles, a second round pick and a fourth round pick for Sam Bradford and a fifth rounder. He traded LeSean McCoy to the Buffalo Bills for Kiko Alonso in a trade that Rex Ryan said took all of 30 minutes to materialize.
He threw huge money at Byron Maxwell. He fortified the running back position by signing DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews (for the same price he was paying LeSean McCoy). He made an unsuccessful run at Devin McCourty. He lost Jeremy Maclin in free agency and parted ways with long time Eagles, Trent Cole and Todd Herramens. He jettisoned — yet again — a Pro Bowl player for nothing in return when he released Evan Mathis.
It was as though Kelly adopted the famed German World War II strategy blitzkrieg, which translates to "lightning war" when he took the reigns of the Eagles' player personnel. The quick flurry of moves left fans and media members alike awe struck and exasperated, wondering whether the "college head coach" was "in over his head."
(Side note: many started to question whether Kelly was flying be the seat of his pants, making each move on the fly without any plan in place for implementing his roster overhaul. This is Chip Kelly we are talking about. The same coach who has his practices scripted down to the second. The same coach who measures his players water intake and sleep, and who requires each player to fill out a personalized survey every morning to monitor their well-being and reduce the risk of injury.The notion that he would somehow wing the roster shakeup on the fly was nonsensical).
It's too soon to say whether this will all work out. Some of the decisions Kelly has made bring with them considerable historical risk: so much roster turnover can have delirious effects on a team. Relying on too many oft-injured players can backfire in a hurry. Throwing big money around in free agency rarely, if ever works (just ask Dan Snyder and the Washington Redskins).
But you have to admire Kelly for having a growth mindset, for not being complacent, and not being satisfied with good enough. Because given the drought this city has endured — 55 years since its last NFL championship — good enough is not going to cut it.
And while I am not a betting man, and Kelly's moves give me some trepidation, I am all-in on Kelly. Go big, or go home.
