Philadelphia Eagles fans may be ready to mash the panic button with both hands after the team's season opening loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday night, but head coach Chip Kelly isn't. Kelly, meeting with the media the day after the Eagles surprising defeat at the hands of the new-look Falcons, 26-24, reiterated his belief in the players he brought to the Philly roster who didn't perform up to snuff in Week One - players like kicker Cody Parkey, who missed a potential game-winning field goal and cornerback Byron Maxwell, who was handed a mammoth six-year, $63 million contract in free agency to be the top dog in the Eagles revamped secondary.
"I have total confidence in Cody Parkey," Kelly said after the game, via Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Daily News. "He was a Pro Bowl kicker last year. I think he's an outstanding kicker. I have total confidence, like everyone in this organization, in him."
Kelly may have total confidence in Parkey, but it's unlikely that fans of the team feel the same. While Parkey did perform extremely well during a 2014 rookie season that landed him in the Pro Bowl, he also missed four of his 36 attempts, two of which came in a devastating late-season loss to the NFC East rival Washington Redskins that ultimately moved the Birds out of playoff contention.
Parkey also spent the better part of preseason looking shaky at best, missing two of his seven field goal tries and even botching one of the league's new 33-year extra points.
As for Maxwell, who, after all was said and done and the final tallies came in, was targeted 11 times by the Falcons and between Julio Jones and Roddy White yielded 10 catches for 179 yards, Kelly said that it was simply inconsistent technique that led to his difficult outing against Atlanta.
"Just inconsistencies in techniques. I think Byron would be the first one to tell you that," Kelly said, per Bowen. "When he was locked up in technique, he did a really good job. When he got beat, you can look at where he was from a technical standpoint ... In terms of how you're taking guys, in press man or on the line of scrimmage, are you working lateral, are you getting hands on them, are you opening up the gate (and letting them run down the field free)?"
There were a couple of times in the game that Maxwell was beaten cleanly. On the long fourth-quarter reception by Jones that allowed the Falcons to score the winning points, Maxwell whiffed on his press technique and Jones was by him before the safety could get over to help.
In the end, it's only one game out of a 16-game season and there were so many new faces, so many moving parts to integrate into this Eagles team on both sides of the ball that there were bound to be some initial stumbles, some significant growing pains. While Philadelphia's upcoming game against the Dallas Cowboys isn't necessarily "must-win" this early in the season, it's important that Kelly's Eagles start to show improvement in some of the areas that plagued them last year and seem to already be holding them back in 2015.
