Revolutionaries are rare in the NFL. With each generation you can probably count on one hand the real talents and thinkers who had the genius to change our conception of the game. Chip Kelly was supposed to be one of those geniuses. For one night, he was.
Kelly was touted as an offensive savant from his days at Oregon, a tactician who was going to change the way we viewed NFL offence.
He was going to push the pace relentlessly and be the NFL’s Mike D’Antoni, bringing the seven-seconds-or-less Phoenix Suns west to Pennsylvania to pick up first downs like Steve Nash launched threes.
For one night, Kelly’s debut during Week 1 of 2013, the hype became truth.
In the first half against Washington that opening Monday, the Eagles ran 53 plays, picked up 21 first downs and scored 26 points. Every play they sprinted to the line of scrimmage as though they were about to spike the ball with one second left to attempt a game-winning field goal. But there was no spiking – only yardage, and lots of it.
Kelly’s zone blocking schemes and unbalanced offensive lines created freeway lanes of space for LeSean McCoy to exploit, and the dominant running game opened up the passing game for Michael Vick. The Eagles moved the ball with such ease that night it looked like they were playing on a field with dimensions twice as large as normal. They looked like they were playing a new sport.
The sun has since set on that run-and-gun Phoenix homage. Since that fateful night in Washington, the Eagles have gone a respectable but unremarkable 23-17 under Kelly, one and done in the playoffs in 2013 before failing to qualify last season.
After finishing second in offensive DVOA in 2013, Philadelphia dropped to 13th last year and entered last weekend 21st in the league. The Eagles have continued winning games at a better than 50 per cent clip under Kelly, but it’s been thanks to a defence that ranked top 10 in DVOA last season and stood at third in the league entering the Dallas game.
The results, while undistinguished, are there, but the magic is gone.
Sunday night against Dallas was a chance for Philadelphia to make a statement. In a marquee time-slot against a bitter rival, the Eagles had a chance to turn their mediocre 3-4 season around. Going against Greg Hardy and America’s team, the Eagles were the moral universe’s team.
The good guys ended up winning – just – but they left the people uninspired.
The greatest disappointment of the Kelly era has not been his team’s lack of success, it’s that the Eagles have devolved back to convention. This is an unremarkable football team and it has been for a while now.
They still play at a fast place, but while in 2013 the pace seemed like a revolutionary tactic, in 2015 it just feels like an awkward niche – as though Kelly is playing a song to prove that it’s good, even though nobody is listening anymore.
The Eagles possess a rare, up-tempo offence that is totally devoid of explosion. Philadelphia ranks 22nd in the league in big-play percentage, thanks largely to an anaemic passing game that is 25th in DVOA. Sam Bradford has oscillated between mediocrity and awfulness, sporting the 28th ranked quarterback rating in the league, behind the likes of Kirk Cousins, Blake Bortles and – fittingly – Nick Foles.
On Sunday night it was tough to distinguish Bradford from Matt Cassel in terms of their play, which says it all for the former number one draft pick.
There are still times where it all clicks for Kelly’s Eagles and they’re able to channel that night in Washington. That was the case in Philly’s second-quarter touchdown drive against Dallas, where they gashed the Cowboys defence for big chunks of rushing yardage time and time again as they marched down the field like a mouse navigating a maze that was too simple for it.
But for every one of those drives it seems like there are four three-and-outs where DeMarco Murray gets stuffed behind the line and Bradford checks down to nowhere.
The woeful offence has been saved by an elite defence which is tied for the league lead in turnovers generated. While the offence has been unable to make big plays, the defence has, using game-changing turnovers to beat division rivals New York and Dallas in the past month.
At 4-4, half a game behind the inconsistent Giants in the NFC East, and with Miami, Tampa Bay and Detroit to come in the next three weeks, the Eagles are in the driver’s seat to win their division.
Sunday was a vital win for Chip Kelly and his team, gaining ground on the Giants and effectively ending Dallas’ season in the process. But vitality in the standings is not vitality on the field, and on that front the Eagles continue to be operate without a spark.
In 2015, they’re a good, solid NFL team. Considering what we saw in September 2013 that might be the most depressing outcome of all.
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