Nick Piccone
Yesterday came the huge news that Adam Schefter thinks there’s a good possibility the Eagles and Chip Kelly split after this season. Although their record could be much worse than 4-6, yes, the Eagles are still in the NFC East division title hunt. Of course, nobody wants to hear that, including myself, so I’m not sure why I just typed that. Habit, I guess.
Another thing that’s recently come to light is the question of whether Kelly has lost the team already. There’s been a lot of frustration building from players that make its way out to the media and to us. There’s those ongoing Kelly back to college rumors that won’t seemingly end. Honestly, if the Eagles were 10-0, those rumors would still exist. But now, we have the first real report saying that the Eagles players have already tuned their coach out.
According to NJ.com’s Matt Lombardo, a starting player’s agent told him that Kelly has lost the team, citing his bullshit methods and someone feigning an injury to stay off the field.
“Chip Kelly has lost the team,” said the agent, who requested anonymity because of fear of retribution against his client. “Between the losses and his bull[bleep] methods that aren’t working, I can tell you that the players have tuned him out.”
The agent also raised the possibility that at least one player was using an injury to stay off the field, because “he won’t play hurt for Chip.” The player, he said, could play with the injury but has chosen to stay on the sideline.
That last part sounds like Jason Peters, who apparently was ready to go in the Dolphins’ game, then was inactive.
As for the sports sciencey stuff, it sounds like the players have a limit to what they’ll allow Kelly to monitor. Apparently this season, the sleep monitors Kelly introduced two years ago have been a “point of contention,” as Connor Barwin says, “They’re a little intrusive for guys.”
I don’t know, and I’m not a football coach or a sports sciencey guy, but why would this be an issue two years later when it wasn’t ever talked about as being an issue before? Oh, that entirely new roster Kelly constructed with guys of his “culture”? Oy.
Maybe the players are starting to not believe in Chip as much as he believes in himself.
Happy Thanksgiving!