Chip Kelly

[JSeahawks]

The man is a sarcastic genius in press conferences, and an incredibly smart and innovative coach whom his players love. When Coach Carroll is ready to retire after winning a few Super Bowls I would LOVE for Paul Allen to open up his check book and get Chip to Seattle:

Q. Can you kind of talk about what's behind the big signs that you guys use and why you went that route in college and brought it to the NFL?

COACH KELLY: No. (Laughter.) Next question?

Q. Can you elaborate on that?

COACH KELLY: No, we're not ‑‑ we could tell you what all our signals are, too, but that's not going to help us.

Then about 15 questions later in the press conference:

Q. Different players, did they kind of chip in and say, hey, let's do a cheesesteak, let's do a Ben Franklin thing and things like that? Did they give different ideas?

COACH KELLY: I have no idea what a Ben Franklin thing is, so you lost me on that.

Q. Well, either a Ben Franklin or a cheesesteak and all that stuff. Did they say, hey, let's do a picture of this ‑‑

COACH KELLY: You're still on the sign thing, right?

Q. Yeah, I think it's great.

COACH KELLY: I have no idea. No, they have not. Not to my knowledge.

Then there's this gem:

Q. Philosophically or logistically is there a unique approach you take toward road trips or road games?

COACH KELLY: We fly if at all possible.

And finally talking about the unimportance of Time of Possession:

Q. Are there any unique demands that are put on a defense that's running opposite the up-tempo offense that you've noticed over your time?

COACH KELLY: No, I really haven't. It's about plays run. I've heard the question about time of possession, but we've talked about all the time ‑‑ time of possession is how much time can the other team waste. Most games, we lose the time of possession, but it's how many snaps do you face, and I think in both games we've played, we've played more snaps than our other team. We played a game against UCLA a couple years ago, time of possession was 40 to 20. They had 20 more minutes of time of possession, and it was 73‑71 snaps. So they had two more snaps. We won 60‑13. So all I gathered was that they stand around a lot more than we do. So I think when people look at the time of possession, and that's what people look at automatically, time of ‑‑ it's not time of possession, it's plays run is what I look at because you're not exerting any energy if you're just standing in the huddle.

Now, if it's drastically different and teams are snapping the ball and getting 80 snaps against us against our defense and we're putting 50 snaps up offensively, then it's an issue.


Q. So they may be on the field longer, may have to be ‑‑

COACH KELLY: We'll teach them how to stand around better.

Q. No, I'm saying your defense might be on the field ‑‑

COACH KELLY: They're not on the field longer. That's what I just said. I think in the first game it was 86‑65. So they had to defend 65 plays, we ran 86 plays. If you're doing things the way we're supposed to be doing on offense, we need to teach our defense how to stand around better.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/eag ... signs.html

 

[pehawk]

As a NFL fan, I LOVE what Chip's doing. Rarely do you see new ideas or philosophies in the NFL. I'm skeptical though.

At Oregon, they always had superior athletes, and through scheduling there was always 5 or 6 bye weeks scheduled, based on inferior opponents. If it wasn't a weak opponent, it may be 45-17 at half. That builds in a lot of rest and reduces wear and tear on your starters. The NFL is 20 games. Chip has less players to throw out there. And, there's no Portland States on the schedule.

I'm not breaking new ground with that opinion, I know. There's no need flash your feathers J. We'll find out soon enough.

HOWEVER, if anyone can do it Chip can. Dude's part Rainman part Pete Carroll.

 

[JSeahawks]

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that offensively he will succeed. It might not look exactly like what he did at Oregon, but he's smart enough to adapt and make it into whatever it needs to be to succeed in the NFL. I wish he had a better defense to work with, because that could be his undoing. Hopefully the Eagles management will be patient with him.

 

[RolandDeschain]

I'm curious to see what happens, but virtually every first-time NFL head coach fails. Don't slit your wrists if he fails with the Eagles, J.

 

[dontbelikethat]

And, there's no Portland States on the schedule.

Yeah...but they do play the Raiders this year, plus the Jags & Jets in pre-season, so close enough.

 

[pehawk]

I bet you Chip's has a "dash" of autism. He's got a simple, yet at the same time brilliant, approach to life.

You know who he kind of reminds me of? Karl Pilkington. Just a bit.

I'm pretty stoked to watch it.

 

[mrblitz]

agreed that, in the nfl he won't have the substitutions available on defense that he had in college.

that's the thing; can he run that style of game without the roster depth on defense the he had in college?

 

[Sarlacc83]

This is a must read for Kelly fans (and fans of football strategy in general): http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-trian ... ason-debut

His quotes above crack me up, because you can sense that he wants reporters to have a deeper understanding of the game than: "derrrr, what about da signs?" Not to say that he's going to give anything away, but I really think he values honest questions and loves to dismiss fluff - and I love that about him.