Philly Front Office

As soon as the Eagles’ schedule came out, I circled the date on my calendar (I have a real and fully circle-able calendar btw): December 14th, Chip Kelly is coming to town. Alas, Chip couldn’t make it to Thanksgiving since he was fired by the Raiders. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to have some fun by waxing…what’s the opposite of poetic?…about his reign of terror as the Eagles top decision maker.

Philadelphia Eagles vs Las Vegas Raiders

December 14th at 1p on FOX

Lincoln Financial Field – Philadelphia, PA

Chip was fresh off an exhilarating first season as Eagles head coach in which the team went 10-6 and lost to the Saints in the playoffs. LeSean McCoy won the rushing title, Nick Foles had 27 TDs to only 2 picks, and watching opposing defenses gasp for air trying to keep up with our relentless offense was a weekly highlight. Things looked pretty good going into year two. What we didn’t know though was that a power struggle was going on behind the scenes between the new innovative coach and young GM, Howie Roseman. Chip wanted HIS guys.

One of his guys was NOT DeSean Jackson. In 2013, DeSean had 82 catches for 1332 yards and 9 TDs. He was awesome. On March 28th, the Eagles simply released him. Excuse me? Jackson had just signed a 5/$47m extension before the 2012 season too. Despite his best statistical season, the Eagles let him go for nothing.¹ Things were about to get worse.

Eagles Quarterback Timeline

The Eagles were fresh off the 2013 NFL Draft where they (kind of miraculously) landed Lane Johnson with the 4th overall pick. In 2014, the Eagles were picking 22nd. There were a few guys on our radar, but with HaHa Clinton-Dix going 21st, the Eagles were out of options and traded back to 26 so the Browns could draft Johnny Manziel. We ended up selecting Marcus Smith. Smith was a productive college player, but lacked NFL size and speed. He was projected to go in the 3rd or 4th round, but the Eagles took him in the 1st. Predictably, he could barely get on the field with the Eagles and was out of the league within a few years. The rest of the draft wasn’t much better. Jordan Matthews (2nd) stunk, Josh Huff (3rd) and Taylor Hart (5th) were Chip’s Oregon guys, they stunk. Beau Allen taken in the 7th round was the only guy worth anything.

The Eagles finished a much less fun 10-6 and did not make the playoffs. A few days after the final game of the season, behind the scenes issues came to a head. On January 2nd, 2015 GM Howie Roseman was demoted and ostracized to a back office in the NovaCare Complex and Chip Kelly was given full control of the roster. He went on the war path almost immediately. It was a fucking disaster:

• To start the offseason, several former All-Pros and team leaders were released including Trent Cole, Evan Mathis, and Todd Herremans
• March 3 – Eagles trade LeSean McCoy to Buffalo for LB Kiko Alonso. McCoy was another “Not Chip’s Guys” who was traded straight up for a definite “Chip Guy” in Alonso who had played for the coach at Oregon. Alonso was coming off a completely lost 2014 season with a torn ACL. McCoy was coming off a 1300 yard season and a first team All-Pro the year before. Miserable value here.
• March 10 – Chip seemed to have a thing for torn ACLs because his next move was to trade Nick Foles AND a 2nd round pick to the Rams for Sam Bradford who also missed the whole 2014 season with a torn ACL. This trade probably wouldn’t have been fair for the Eagles straight up, but throwing in a 2nd was malpractice.
• Later That Day – The Eagles signed Byron Maxwell to one of the biggest CB contracts in history, 6/$63m after 12 starts for the Seahawks. In his first game he let up 10 catches, 179 yards, and 2 TDs to Julio Jones. It never really got any better.
• March 12 – When the Eagles traded McCoy, I tried to put a positive spin on it by assuming the Eagles felt that literally any RB could have success in Kelly’s offense. Enter Ryan Matthews. The former Chargers RB signed for 3/$11.5m, a perfectly reasonable sum for the job. This was the year Frank Gore had tentatively agreed to sign with the Eagles only to back out of the deal. Mathews would be fine.
• Later That Day – Then we signed DeMarco Murray. WTF??? The 5/$42m deal was enormous and pretty close to the same deal McCoy had signed a few years earlier. The problem was that Murray was a few months older than McCoy and 3 years older than when McCoy was extended and was coming off a league high 450 touches. He led the league in rushing, but the Cowboys had run him into the ground. Any thought we had that the Eagles planned to save money at RB was out the window. Now we had 2.
• April 20th – Eagles sign Tim Tebow. He hadn’t made an NFL roster in 2 years.

Eagles vs Rams: One of the Dumbest Eagles Trades Ever

We haven’t even arrived at the 2015 NFL Draft yet! Consider this a disaster averted. The Bucs were picking first and long believed to be taking Jameis Winston. The #2 prospect though was Chip’s old Oregon QB Marcus Mariota. Of all Chip’s guys, Mariota was THE guy and he desperately wanted him on the Eagles. The Titans were picking #2 and the reports were that Chip offered them damn near everything for him: 2015 1st (20) and 2nd (47) round picks, 2016 1st, PLUS any QB on the roster (presumably Sam Bradford) and, this is the absolute killer, any defender on the roster. This would have been team legend and the second-best DT in the league, Fletcher Cox. Jesus, thank God Tennessee didn’t take this deal. The Eagles drafted Nelson Agholor and Eric Rowe instead.

The season was predictably terrible. Murray stunk. Maxwell stunk. Alonso stunk. Bradford stunk. It could not have gone worse, with one exception. Chip Kelly was fired a few days before the final game of the season. Howie Roseman was reinstated and immediately set to work on undoing everything Chip did over the last two seasons. The Eagles would win the Super Bowl just 2 seasons later.

1. Jackson would sign with rival Washington and have another great season including torching the Eagles twice that first year with two 100-yard games. ↩︎