Patrick Causey, on Twitter @PhillySportsPMC
ESPN.com asked the reporters for each NFC East team which player or coach is on the hot seat for the 2015 NFL season.
Todd Archer, who covers the Dallas Cowboys, picked Chip Kelly:
After being on the hot seat every year since he took over, I think it’s fair to say it’s not Jason Garrett. (And I do think we all overstated how hot his seat actually was.) It’s easy to say Tom Coughlin or Jerry Reese with the Giants, too. But I’m going with Chip Kelly. The Eagles' moves this offseason have been all about Kelly. The trade of LeSean McCoy was at first called a salary-cap move, but then the Eagles put big money into DeMarco Murray and solid money into Ryan Mathews. I’m not ready to say Kiko Alonso will be a star the way McCoy is a star. The trade for Sam Bradford is a huge risk considering the quarterback’s injury history. They have taken an interesting route with their receivers. If this doesn’t work out for the Eagles, then Kelly will have nobody to blame but himself.
I get what Archer is saying here to an extent — Kelly took considerable risks rebuilding the team, some of it perhaps unnecessary, like by signing players with significant injury histories. I wrote about the same thing a few weeks back here.
But to take that to the logical extreme that Kelly is on "the hot seat" is a stretch. Kelly has won 20 games in his first two seasons, tied for the 8th best record in the NFL during that time period.
And as far as we can tell, Jeffrey Lurie is smitten with Kelly. Lurie is on record saying that he believes Kelly is a transformative coach and gave him the keys to the franchise over his long-time prodige, Howie Roseman.
If things go south, perhaps Lurie will strip Kelly of his player personnel title. But I can only see that if things really go south. I don't see anyway that Kelly gets fired after this season.
