The Chip Wagon

Where Did it All Go Wrong? The Rise and Fall of Chip Kelly

I apologize for what was a very quiet 2015 NFL season at the Chipwagon this past year. There are a couple reasons for that. 1) I started a new job in September and it has been pretty demanding of my time and balancing that with the family life didn't leave a lot of time left to put blog posts together. 2) Watching the 2015 season was one of the worst and most frustrating seasons I can recall watching. I realize that this was far from one of the worst seasons in Eagles history, but from beginning to end it was just so frustrating and aggravating to watch. We had lapses in execution all season long and Chip's offense that I loved so much in 2013 and 2014 just went completely stale.  The truth is, there is no one reason why things didn't work out in Philadelphia. Certainly, Chip the GM, Chip's personality, the power struggle with Howie Roseman and his apparent fractured relationship with Jeff Lurie will lead the way in the headlines. Our old friend @sheilkapadia was spot on this assessment which really nicely summarized the downfall of the Kelly regime. However, to look at it from another angle, one really needs to understand that Lurie's decision was not exclusively a non-footbal decision. To put it bluntly, the Chip Kelly we fell in love with just stopped showing up on the chalkboard in 2015. The offense we saw in 2015 was a stripped down version of what we saw in 2013 and 2014 and lacked any imagination, creativity or evolution as defenses around the league continued to adjust and catch up. Furthermore, it seemed in 3 years Chip Kelly's offense lacked some of the fundamental concepts and philosophies that need to be considered and applied in the pro game. Here is my post-mortem and likely final chapter on Chip Kelly's offense.

The Eagles Ground Game: From Hot Mess to Work in Progress

Needless to say, the Eagles really needed to get the ground game working if we were to expect to see any improvements on the offensive side of the ball. Fortunately, we saw that on Sunday against a tough New York Jets front. Fran Duffy over at Philadelphiaeagles.com did a great job outlining how the Eagles game-planned against that Jets defensive front with a heavy dose of outside running to avoid the interior of the Jets DL. Certainly, after reviewing the All-22 we saw some major improvements in the execution of the run game, but Chip also did an excellent job of moving away from the inside zone and sweep play and introduced a bit more diversity in the run game. In this post, we'll talk a little bit about how Chip mixed up formations and used a heavy dose of outside zone to attack the Jets with some decent success. That said, the Eagles only averaged 3.2 yards per carry on Sunday, and even against a strong Jets front, that is a number that needs to improve moving forward. As you'll see in this post, this group is still a work in progress who now faces another challenge in dealing with Andrew Gardner's season-ending injury. 

The Eagles Run Game is a Hot Mess

Another week, another unexpected disappointment from the Eagles offense. I did not expect that. It was certainly one of the poorest offensive performances I've seen from an Eagles offense in a long, long time. Very little encouragement to take out of this one. 

We all know Chip Kelly's Eagles as a run-first team. That's the way it's been since he's been here. So it shouldn't be surprising that when the Eagles can't get the running game going, it bogs the whole offense down. As I suggested on the weekend, I expected Chip to mix things up in the running game a bit more, but unfortunately, we did not see that on Sunday. Once again, it was a ground game based mostly on inside zone and sweep. He did run a bit more from under center this week presumably to try disguise the direction of the run play. It didn't work against the Cowboys but it was mostly because of poor run blocking up front. Now this doesn't excuse the play of Sam Bradford and the WRs, more on that later, but for now the Eagles have a ton of issues along the offensive line with the run game and they must get it sorted out. I wish I could just lay the blame on the two biggest question marks of the offseason like I did last week, but Andrew Gardner and Allen Barbre were hardly the biggest culprits on Sunday. I'm afraid this game is going to look even uglier when the All-22 comes out, but a number of blocking issues could be seen miles away on the TV feed. 

Changing of the Guard

So that was not the start we were all hoping for. Frustrating first half. The Eagles couldn't get anything going. I don't have a problem with the Eagles gameplan. Clearly they liked their matchup in the passing game but Bradford was rusty to start and the Eagles were unable to set the tone early. Obviously one of the biggest question marks of the offseason was the Eagles strategy at Offensive Guard. They let long-time veteran Todd Herremans go and then surprisingly cut Pro-Bowler Evan Mathis during a contract dispute. Enter Allen Barbre and Andrew Gardner. Both players had a strong preseason, but they both had a rough outing last night and were one of the main reasons the Eagles struggled to get their ground game moving.