Did LeSean McCoy Cost Chip Kelly His Job?

After Chip Kelly was fired as head coach of the Eagles, there had been reports that Jeffrey Lurie couldn’t wait to replace Kelly. By now, most are aware that in January of 2015 Kelly gave Lurie an ultimatum that he needed full control of the organization to win, hence why Howie Roseman was temporarily invisible to probably everyone except Lurie. There’s a new report by Joseph Santoliquito of CBS Philly that gives further details into what may have doomed Chip Kelly.

The report states that “privately, Lurie had his reservations if Kelly knew what he was doing.” That’s not good for an owner to think that, but I’m willing to bet thoughts like that happen on a weekly basis. Clark Hunt likely thought, “WHAT IN THE BLUE HELL!?” when Andy Reid and Doug Pederson blew their managing of the clock at the end of their playoff game against the Patriots. It happens.

Despite Kelly recently proclaiming that his job was to acquire talent, not get rid of talent, we all know that while he was in Philly, he certainly didn’t live by that motto. Santoliquito mentions in the report what he believes that final straw was for Kelly:

What apparently may have swayed Lurie, according to sources, came in the Eagles’ 23-20 victory over the Buffalo Bills on Dec. 13, 2015. It marked the return of the Eagles’ leading rusher LeSean McCoy vs. the player he was dealt for — the injury-prone, underachieving linebacker Kiko Alonso.
 
Lurie was watching from the owner’s box, bristling. Kelly had wanted Alonso, and here Lurie was witnessing the guy the Eagles traded for unable to tackle the player Kelly got rid of. It made Lurie question what Kelly was doing. That may have been the last straw. It was a reminder that Kelly was not listening to anyone but himself, and it led to backward decisions.”

We all were shocked by the McCoy-Alonso trade when it went down, but some tried to rationalize it, though to the naked eye it didn’t look like a very good trade. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was the nail in Kelly’s coffin because that trade eventually led to the Eagles signing DeMarco Murray, which also didn’t make much sense at the time. We all know how the Murray-Philadelphia saga turned out.

A year removed from Kelly’s ultimatum to Lurie, the Eagles have no Murray, no Alonso and LeSean McCoy is in Buffalo all battered and bruised inside from his exit from Philadelphia. The Eagles have tried to cleanse the organization and their soul from Hurricane Kelly. Let’s just hope Doug Pederson can lead this City to the promised land.