Chip Kelly: 'We're Not Doing Anything Revolutionary Offensively'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Chip Kelly calls it fodder for the talking season. And it's been heard more than a few times repeated ad nauseam, as to how opposing teams will be able to better defend the Eagles' explosive offense after a season on tape.
The truth is, you can't defend Kelly's offense no matter how much tape you have. Kelly's offense is based on where he sees mismatches on the field. It's an ever-evolving process that will have a number of new looks, because the Eagles have a number of new options added to the offense like Darren Sproles, Jordan Matthews and a second-year Zach Ertz.
It's a point Kelly wanted to make in addressing the media Friday at the NovaCare Complex.
"[The offense] always changes, it always changes," Kelly said. "I've said it since day one your offense is always personnel driven. The biggest thing that you have to do is identify the skill sets that you have and adjust to those skill sets. It's the way football has always been; our offense has changed every year that I've been in charge of the offense when I was at New Hampshire, Oregon or here.
"Our quarterbacks have had different skill sets. We ran more power running plays [at Oregon] when Jeremiah Masoli was our quarterback. He was an outstanding runner. He was different from Darron Thomas, and Darron was more of a pocket passer and can do different things. Darron was actually really good at throwing on the run. Whatever their strengths are, you always try to cater to them. We have some new guys [with the Eagles] and we'll tweak what we're doing based on what their skill sets are and continue to evaluate here. How do run this, as opposed to we didn't do this much in the past. Now we have a different type of person and this is what we're going to do."
Kelly stressed that "We don't change for change sake. You scout yourself and say we went 5-for-5 on a certain pass pattern doesn't mean we aren't going to call it again because they know it's coming. They have to stop in certain situations. It's still football. It's just the talking season where guys will say they've had time to figure it out. I've said since Day One we're not doing anything revolutionary offensively. We run inside zone, outside zone. We run a sweep play, we run a power play. We have a five-step game, we have a three-step game; we run some screens. We're not doing anything that hasn't done before in football."
BIRD SEEDS
Receiver Riley Cooper had his right foot in a walking boot on Friday, but Kelly said Cooper it was "preventive thing and that [Cooper] should be ready in a couple of days." … Ohio State coach Urban Meyer was effusive in his praise for Kelly after visiting this summer. "He was here for a couple of days," Kelly said. "I have great respect for him. I think he's one of the all-time great coaches in college football. He's actually very, very good friends with [Eagles' defensive coordinator] Billy Davis. Billy and him went to college together. I visited Urban when we was at Florida. I went to Ohio State to watch them practice. He's one of the guys I talk a lot of football with. It's plays, it's schemes, it's what are you doing off the field, it's everything."
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