It’s been nearly two months since Chip Kelly was relieved of head coaching duties in Philadelphia, but that hasn’t kept his former players from leveling harsh criticism on his tenure with the Eagles.
The latest assailant is Evan Mathis, the Pro Bowl guard who was released by Kelly before training camp last year despite a weakness at the position. The 34-year-old subsequently inked a contract with the Denver Broncos, winning the Super Bowl earlier this month.
“There were many things that Chip had done that showed me he wasn’t building a championship team,” Mathis wrote in an email correspondence with KUSA-TV, an NBC affiliate in Denver. “Two of the main issues that concerned me were: 1. A never-evolving, vanilla offense that forced our own defense to play higher than normal play counts. 2. His impatience with certain personality types even when they were blue-chip talents. The Broncos team I was on would have eaten Chip alive. I don’t think he could have handled the plethora of large personalities.”
Kelly made several bold moves that backfired after assuming full control of personnel decisions in December 2013. He released three-time Pro Bowl wide receiver DeSean Jackson, traded two-time All-Pro running back LeSean McCoy, allowed Pro Bowl wideout Jeremy Maclin to walk and traded quarterback Nick Foles and a 2016 second-round draft pick for Sam Bradford.
Splashy signings like running back DeMarco Murray and cornerback Byron Maxwell underperformed.
The free-agent guard is not the first of Kelly’s former charges to lash out at the coach. Last year McCoy ripped the trade that sent him packing as a “panic move” by Kelly, echoing Mathis’ criticisms that he doesn’t think the coach “likes or respects the stars”.
Kelly, fired from his job with the Eagles on 30 December after three seasons, wasn’t out of work for long: the San Francisco 49ers tabbed him to replace Jim Tomsula in January.
