​Chip Kelly Ignored the Most Basic Rule of NFL Coaching

There was always a glitz and glamour attached to former Eagles head coach Chip Kelly. His offense turned Oregon a national title contender. His sports-science program was written about like he was half-coach, half-NFL Steve Jobs. Kelly had some foibles with game theory as an NFL head coach, sure, but he always projected as such a forward-thinker that I second-guessed criticizing him. Maybe, just maybe, he was a few steps ahead of my thoughts on a topic.

Which made it ironic when the Eagles fired Kelly on Tuesday. Because Chip Kelly's vision for running an offense didn't fail. Nobody creates the kind of season Nick Foles had in 2013 without knowing a little something about offense.

But Chip was undone by the same elementary concept that trips up so many college coaches, the thing that felled Nick Saban, Bobby Petrino, and Steve Spurrier as NFL head coaches.

The kind of shit every college coach should see coming.

Schemes Win in College, Talent Wins in the NFL

In college, Baylor's Art Briles can throw his wideouts a hundred feet from the hashes and create a disadvantage. But the hashes are wider in the NFL. Saban can create a running-and-defense dynasty at Alabama because he recruits the best athletes in the nation and wins wars of attrition.

But schemes don't win in the NFL. Busted plays happen much less often, which is why every blown coverage leads to immediate Twitter snarking. You can create 100-to-150 passing yards a game off checkdowns, zone coverage, and quick screens. But it's those other yards on the field that dictate your success as an offense.

Kelly inherited a deep and talented offensive line and a pair of great receivers in DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin. Both receivers moved on for bigger money that Kelly refused to match. The line began to get older and more injury-prone. This is standard operating procedure in the NFL. I wouldn't even argue that Kelly did poorly letting players like Jackson and guard Evan Mathis walk.

The problem was the alternative plan. Kelly's plan to fix the quarterback position was to bring in Sam Bradford, a player who has yet to have a quality NFL season. His plan to fix wide the receiver position was to overdraft good college receivers and rely on scrapheap finds like Miles Austin until those rookies were ready. His plan to fix the offensive line … I'm sure it existed, even if I can't find any evidence of it.

To be fair to Kelly, DeMarco Murray was a real stab at fixing the trouble with the offense. But Murray was never regarded as some sort of uber-elite talent in Dallas before his 400-carry 2014 season. We weren't watching Adrian Peterson bowl over guys here — Murray was a good back, but not a great one.

The Eagles flopped this season because no amount of chicanery and scheming is going to make up for the fact that they don't have a receiver that can beat man coverage. I've heard over and over again that general manager Chip failed head coach Chip in this regard. But my point is not that he failed — it's that anyone following this philosophy has failed. Dominant players make coaches look good in the NFL, not the other way around.

You Can't Babysit NFL Players

As a college head coach, you're trusted with people's kids. Not only are you going to make them good football players, you're going to instill values in them. You're going to turn them into good men. Parents ask college coaches to guide their kids during the most formative years of a football player's life.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
— Emmanuel Acho (@thEMANacho) December 30, 2015

An NFL head coach is dealing with grown men. Men who get paid money to play a sport and may not want, for instance, to deal with optimal smoothie programs. All we've heard in the days since Kelly's firing has been about how he lost the team. An anonymous ex-Eagles player told NJ.com that "[Kelly] never had the support of the team this year. It was a toxic situation from the moment I arrived. Those guys in that locker room almost universally despised him."

Owner Jeff Lurie went on to cite Kelly's lack of "emotional intelligence" in interviews. The Philadelphia locker room has been combustible all season, with players openly complaining about playing time. Murray pulled Lurie aside and expressed his disappointment in a benching.

If there's one thing we've learned from baseball's analytics revolution, it's that players don't always react positively to things that should benefit them. Zach Wheeler of the Mets is just one of many pitchers who have complained about infield shifts. Shift percentages have continued to grow — because they make empirical sense. But some pitchers don't feel comfortable with them.

Kelly's smoothies and sleep-tracking technology intends to get the best out of players. But he doesn't have the same captive audience he had at Oregon. NFL players have families and hobbies. Some of them like to party. (Yes, even non-Johnny Manziel players.) They may not welcome this intrusion into their lives as readily as college kids would.

Walking the line between disciplining unacceptable behavior and allowing players to live their lives is tough even for the most experienced NFL head coaches. Viewed in that context, it's not actually a surprise that Kelly lost the team.

The Future for Kelly

I don't think Kelly is done as an NFL head coach. And I don't think he's going to be a bad head coach in the future.

In interviews with FOX's Jay Glazer, it appeared that Kelly immediately grasped the problem once he was out of the situation. He has said that he wants to leave player acquisition to others in the future. That's half of the battle right there.

The truth about great coaches is that they learn from their mistakes, and make good on their second chances. The Browns fired Bill Belichick. The 49ers fired Jim Harbaugh. Bill Walsh, the innovator of a lot of modern pass offense concepts, retired or nearly was forced into retiring countless times.

It seems like a quarter of the NFL's head coaches at any given time are Peter Principle candidates, and most of them are retreads. Wade Phillips was succeeded by Norv Turner who was succeeded by, apparently, Jim Schwartz.

In a world where that's true, I'd take my chances with Kelly learning from this experience over the rest of the retreads out there right now. This isn't to say the Eagles made a mistake firing Kelly — any coach who fails to follow those two rules gets fired for just cause. But perhaps this can be a win-win down the line, with both the team and the coach becoming stronger for it.