The Worst Case Chip Kelly Scenario

Sometimes, It's This Obvious

So what was your favorite moment from the Lions - Eagles game, folks? I think mine was Detroit Lions WR Calvin Johnson scoring multiple TDs on single coverage against rookie CB Eric Rowe, who was only in the game due to an injury to starting CB Nolan Carroll. In these plays, you had the entire failure of the Chump Kelly Era on full display, in that you have a mindless defensive move putting a player in the greatest possible place for failure, just because changing the scheme in any way was beyond the abilities of the coaching staff.

Kelly has prized versatility in his personnel selections and training... so Rowe has spent time as a corner, a nickel, and a safety. He's also not been on the field very much, because he hasn't been judged as better than street meat EJ Biggers as a slot man... but since he looks big enough to be a corner, in he goes following the injury. Against one of the five best WRs of his era, at home, on a day when Lions QB Matthew Stafford is playing up to his full potential. In this environment, in the last meaningful football game of the season, defensive coordinator Billy Davis can only put Rowe in to a situation where he has no double team help, where the high-priced mediocrity on the other side, CB Brandon Maxwell, is free to jog around and escape primary blame in the second-straight beatdown. Just as Davis did last year, when the season was going down in flames because Bradley Fletcher couldn't defend anyone, and kept getting singled up against Odell Beckham and Dez Bryant.

You've heard how Patriots coach Bill Belichick always takes away your primary option? The Eagles in the Kelly Era always want to give you that option. Whoever your best guy is, they will have an opportunity to shine. There's honestly no reason or evidence that this team scouts games, or knows anything about the other team's personnel. This Megatron guy? Clearly no better than Golden Tate. Don't guard him any different.

We've heard, from this fraud, how culture beats scheme. Which is nonsense writ large, because there is no one choosing you to have one or the other. What it has meant, as shorthand, is that the players who were tossed aside were Bad People and Secret Losers, because they didn't buy into what the coach was selling.

But what does it say about your culture where a rookie with very few snaps is hung out to dry? What does it say about your culture when players jog after ball carriers, because they've lost any of the want that is required to play defense at the NFL level? What does it say that in blowouts, you punt, because you just want the game to end as fast as possible? What does it say when four Pro Bowl players from the offense you inherited are gone for no return on investment, but that Riley Cooper and Miles Austin and Mark Sanchez and other Get Along Can't Play people are here?

What it says is that they aren't winning another game this year. What it says is that Kelly *has* to go, no matter what kind of photos he has of owner Jeff Lurie, no matter how little the team wants to be seen as bowing to the mob with torches and pitchforks.

Sometimes, the mob is right. Sometimes, it really is as obvious as it is right now, that the team is in a shambles, that very little that Chump has done has worked, that the team has no QB, no WR1, no RB1, no CB1, no DC, no HC, and is one of the five worst teams in the NFL. Continuing down this path is just bad money and time after good. Telling yourselves the lie that the talent is acceptable, that the coaching will come around, and that this is anything but a tear-down now, is just pissing down the back of the fan base, and telling them it's rain.

There are no other franchises in town that are doing anything else of worth, of course. Baseball season is five months away. The NBA Draft, where the Sixers fan base might finally feel hope again, is eight months away. The fan base will cry for blood, and if they don't get it, will go find something else to occupy their time.

That, by the way, is the *best* case scenario for Kelly; that the fan base is so turned off by this train wreck that they can "work" in relative calm. The worst case is that the scorn that's felt fuels deranged behavior and over-the-top demonstrations, and feeds the national media's need and narrative that Philadelphia Fan is an over the top hate monster, rather than pretty much the same person that watches sports in every other major city. Which means that Next Coach will not see this as an opportunity in a big city, with a great facility, where the owner will give you all the power you'd ever want, so long as you give him the hope that he might finally be seen as smart, rather than absentee.

Five games left. They can't all be as bad as the last two. Or can they?