Category Archives: Eagles

Chip Kelly Apparently Devalues Value

Understatement: What an odd offseason for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Since head coach Chip Kelly was given control of personnel at the end of last season, he has drastically altered the roster. He traded away Lesean McCoy, the franchise’ all-time leading rusher and declined to go the extra mile to retain free agent Jeremy Maclin, the Eagles’ 2014 leading receiver. Also gone are Todd Herremans, a staple on the offensive line and Trent Cole, a staple on the defensive line. First-string quarterback Nick Foles was traded, along with a draft pick for oft-injured, former No. 1 pick Sam Bradford.

In their place, are a host of free agents that fit Kelly’s preferences more closely both in terms of style of play and attitude. Each transaction, be it a release or a trade or a signing, when judged on their own, are either logical or defensible or maybe even savvy. Examined in total and Kelly begins to look like a mad scientist rather than a guru or genius.

All the while, Pro-Bowl offensive guard Evan Mathis and his agent Drew “Next Question” Rosenhaus have felt for at least two years that Mathis was drastically underpaid. They made so much noise that they were given permission by the Eagles to seek out a trade. In other words, look, if you can find something better, more power to you. Kelly has consistently denied that Rosenhaus or a team have come to him with any trade offer whatsoever. The Eagles had all the leverage and they were playing it exactly that way, as they should.

But then, after Mathis failed to participate in voluntary practices last week, Kelly decided to release Mathis. No draft picks in return, no player to be named later in return. Just out and out released him. Again, the Eagles had all the leverage.

So now, the offensive line, which was already the oldest in the league in terms of the age of the starters and was already quite thin after it was ignored in the draft and free agency is now even thinner and less talented. And it wasn’t a matter of re-allocating resources the way much of the offeseason could be described since this was a release, not a trade.

If you are someone who values value, then this offseason just got even more peculiar. If you are someone who likes to leverage leverage, this season got even more peculiar.

For those of you scoring at home, that is now two very good professional football players who were released by Chip Kelly with nothing in return. Coaches are certainly entitled to want players that have the types of the attitudes that they think are important and as we all know, there’s no “i” in team. But consistently giving away very good players is counterproductive no matter how much you value teamwork.

A Tale of Two General Managers

Given the dynamic nature of the Philadelphia Eagles power structure in recent years, the jury is still deliberating on the effectiveness of Howie Roseman as the Eagles general manager. Having said that, I was struck by how Roseman considered Jeremy Maclin’s injury history [via Birds 24/7]:

“When you study the two ACLs, you see it in guys who have one that eventually they have another ACL injury at some point in time,” he said. “Sometimes it balances out guys and sometimes it’s just the nature of a freak injury. And so we went back then and looked at also ACLs in receivers that are 26 and under and looked at the research on those guys and where they came out next year, and it was all really positive. We put that together with our medical reports and we just felt like this was the right move for our football team.”

EsRC84MAnd then there is Ruben Amaro on the rash of shoulder injuries to Phillies’ pitchers early in spring training [via CSNPhilly]:

“Sometimes anatomy is just anatomy.”