Nick Piccone
Lane Johnson had some things to say about Chip Kelly’s up-tempo practices last week, including calling him a dictator. Good stuff by Lane, who threw us under the bus and decided to throw Chip under the bus [and he wasn’t the only one] after he was fired.
Jason Kelce, who pulled back the curtain a bit when talking about Chip’s culture and how it just wasn’t working within the Eagles organization on Saturday morning on the same radio station, didn’t agree with Johnson’s sentiments. Kelce addressed Johnson’s comments on The Locker Room Show on 94WIP last night. Johnson’s comments about “falling apart” at the end of the season due to Kelly’s up-tempo practices particularly drew the ire of Kelce.
Although it may seem that we’re working harder, I thought that Chip and the strength staff actually did an outstanding job of scaling back practices,” Kelce said Monday on the 94WIP Players’ Lounge Show when asked if the team got weary because of Kelly’s practice regiment. “We had a number of practice that were scaled back in time. We had a number of practices where we put no pads on in the middle of the season — they tried to give us like bye weeks almost. We were still out there at practice, but we weren’t banging. I couldn’t be further on the opposite spectrum of this.
“I mean, I love Lane Johnson to death,” Kelce continued, “But he’s only played for one head coach. How does he know the way other teams practice? His only mindset is on what other guys say and what other guys say — they might come in and think that they’re working hard and maybe they’re just getting older. I mean who knows? I can tell you this. When we had Andy Reid, training camp was a lot harder than when we had Chip Kelly.
Kelce took it one step further, unable to hold back his passionate opinion.
“This is like one of the most pampered practice schedules I’ve been a part of to tell you truth,” Kelce said. “If I’m being honest, I think that we have massages, we have all these things put in place — we have smoothies. We have daily questionnaires. ‘How are you feeling today?’ Well dude, you’re gonna go out there and practice. So I think, quite honestly, some of these guys are a little pampered. I don’t want to get started on this, it really bugs me.”
Kelce, who didn’t pull any punches regarding Chip’s decision to bring in too many new guys at once, and actually took some of the blame for chemistry problems within the team, apparently thinks the practice schedule was the least of the things to worry about when it came to Chip. It’s almost admirable, but it’s not like he didn’t throw Chip under the bus, either. And Kelce’s right – Johnson has only played for one professional coach, so all he knows is what he hears from other players. Would other players lie to him? Maybe. But it’s pretty clear Johnson’s comments got to Kelce, and he wasn’t gonna let it slide.
You can listen to Kelce’s comments below.