Eagles Head Coach Chip Kelly Wants To Win Now
By Mike Dyce
The Philadelphia Eagles are looking to bounce back in a tough NFC East division after a dismal 4-12 season that ended Andy Reid’s tenure as head coach. His replacement Chip Kelly is already making his mark doing things his way. He has ended a 70 year tradition of the Philadelphia Eagles leaving town for training camp and he has refused to name a starting quarterback before training camp.
It’s all part of an effort to win now, not later.
“My job is to win right now,” Kelly said, via Geoff Mosher of CSNPhilly.com. “How do you think I’d be received in Philly if I told them we were going to write this year off? Those people that are waving to me on the streets right now? That ain’t going to happen.
“But that’s never been my mentality, either. We’re not writing anything off. We’re going out there to compete and see how it falls, but that’s never been our mentality. I don’t think anyone on our staff, anyone in our locker room, . . . you want to talk about our players buying in? If I went in the locker room and said, ‘This is going to be a really good year for us to get ready for the following year,’ that’s not going to work.
“No one has a mindset like that. So our decision isn’t based upon what is the future two years down the road, three years down the road. I don’t think that far.”
He is right, no in sports has that mentality.
“Every day you go out there you don’t think, ‘Hey, we’re going to win 46 out of 53,’” he said. “It’s a competition every single day, so I don’t think that way, that, hey, I’m not used to losing. We’ve got the utmost respect for whoever we’re going to compete against.
“I know it’s extremely difficult to win in this league. You just look at everybody’s record over the history of the game. It is a different game from that standpoint. But that’s just part of it. That’s the challenge. You look at it and kind of embrace it. You’re excited about it.”
Unfortunately this might be harder than he thinks or is making it sound. The Eagles are looking up at the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and Washington Redskins.