Philadelphia Eagles new head coach Chip Kelly is ready to lead his team into a new season as his first time being a NFL coach. He is looking to turn heads like he did back when he was head coach of the University of Oregon and got the Ducks to 4 consecutive BCS bowl games.
Chip Kelly is known for his wild offences at the University of Oregon that were hard to defend. Kelly’s fast up-tempo offence was an offence that transitioned its way into the NFL and that used the quarterback position in many different ways. If he plans to continue to use this technique in the NFL he has got to decide who his quarterback will be first. In a press conference with the media after his first full team practice on Friday July 26th, Kelly talked about how the competition between Michael Vick and Nick Foles for the position is heating up.
“The great thing about them, one of the best qualities about those guys is they’re unbelievable competitors. It’s a healthy competition. They are both pulling for each other. They know that at any moment if one guy’s named the starter, the other better be ready to go.”
While Michael Vick’s versatility seems to be more of a fit into Kelly’s fast paced offence, Nick Foles is working just as hard for the starting position and looking just as good as Vick was in OTA’s and mini camps. Kelly preached that his mantra for quarterbacks is “Touchdown, first down, get down.”
“I don’t want them taking hits. I don’t want them running over people. I also don’t want them to hook slide when there’s seven, eight more yards they can gain.”
Coach Kelly wants both of the quarterbacks to get a feel for how far they can go and whoever can do the best job at it will most likely get the position.
Chip Kelly’s happiness with the battle for the quarterback position is complimented with his happiness that everyone on the team seems well conditioned and ready to go this season.
“Really happy with how they [the team] ran yesterday. It was impressive. So it proved to me that these guys are pretty serious and they did their work over the summertime because it’s a real simple deal for us. If you didn’t pass your test, it didn’t matter who you were, you weren’t going to practice.”
As mentioned earlier, Friday July 26th was the first full team practice and Kelly seemed happy to have the entire team out there on the field. Players did not wear pads for Fridays practice and Coach Kelly plans on doing the same thing for Sundays practice.
“We’ve just got to tighten it up, but it’s the same exact practice schedule. Individuals; we’ll do three-on-two, one-on-ones. We’ve just got to be conscious that we can’t spread out. We got to do some cooperation.”
Notable players included in the press conference included Matt Barkley who got some reps under center, Jason Peters who is coming back to play this year after an Achilles injury ended his season early last year and also DeSean Jackson who Kelly says is “real impressed with how he’s approached it [camp] and excited to continue to work with him.”
Eagles training camp opens up to the public at Lincoln Financial Field Sunday at 12:30pm.
