Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie's decision to fire head coach Chip Kelly continues to reverberate across the NFL landscape. While the move will likely have far-reaching effects, especially if Kelly lands another gig during the upcoming head coaching carousel, nowhere is the effect of Kelly's ousting more immediately felt than the Eagles locker room.
Several Philly players spoke to media on Wednesday, a day after Kelly was fired, and their reactions seemed to be a mixture of shock and a kind of resigned expectation. One of those players, quarterback Sam Bradford, in his first year in Philadelphia and operating on an expiring deal, told reporters that he wants to return to the Eagles, despite Kelly's removal from the equation.
"I mean, yeah," Bradford said when asked if he still felt like he wanted to return to the team, according to Tim McManus of Philly Mag. "I still enjoy the guys on this team, I enjoy the city, I've enjoyed my time here. Obviously, I think a lot of it depends on who they hire as a head coach now and what type of offensive system he wants to run."
Bradford, the former first-overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, spent five seasons with the St. Louis Rams, but has only ever played in the same offensive system two years in a row once in his career. With Kelly gone, Bradford's again facing an offseason of uncertainty and a new offensive system, meaning whether he's in Philly or elsewhere, he's going to be learning another batch of terminology and a new set of plays. Despite that, Bradford, a guy who was acquired for what essentially amounted to a second-round pick last offseason and seemed to progress as this year wore on, wants to stay.
Of course, Bradford's potential future with the team will be decided by the new head coach, who will be identified sometime soon by Lurie, former GM Howie Roseman, Tom Donahoe and Don Smolenaki.
Lurie held a press conference early on Wednesday and said that he's looking for specific things in a new head coach, like a leader with "emotional intelligence," willing to work as a "collaborator" and open lines of communication with others in the Eagles building.
These seem to be not-so-thinly veiled indications of where Kelly's tenure went off the rails. Tackle Lane Johnson, the first player drafted in the Kelly regime, said that players were aware that not all was well within the Eagle front office toward the end of this season and that "tension upstairs" and Kelly's frigidity ultimately led to his firing.
"It seemed kind of like [Bill] Belichick," Johnson said, per Philly Mag's Adam Hermann. "You know how, sometimes in his press conferences, he's kind of unapproachable sometimes? Maybe some guys felt that way.
"I think everyone just talked to their position coaches and hoped it would trickle, you know, like a chain reaction. Ultimately it doesn't work that way, because those guys are employed by [Kelly] and [Jeffrey Lurie], so maybe it was an intimidation factor a little bit? Maybe a hard guy to approach? People didn't feel like they were comfortable doing that, especially after some of the changes that were made."
While Johnson attempted to take a tactful approach to the end of Kelly's tenure, others - behind closed doors of course - didn't seem to see the need for such pleasantries.
DeMarco Murray, the prized offseason running back addition who reportedly held an impromptu meeting on the team charter with Lurie, told the owner in that meeting that he had "no confidence" in Kelly as a head coach, per NFL.com's Ian Rapoport.
That's not really surprising considering Murray's nearly non-existent production in his first year in Philly after leading the league in rushing the season prior in Dallas, but combined with Johnson's comments and the reports that emerged in the wake of Kelly's firing, it sure sounds like Kelly's time in Philly had come to an end, whether he realized it or not.
And while suggesting he may have "lost the locker room" is probably a little on the lazy side, it's not hard to see why this Eagles season fell apart when so few players beyond Bradford have been willing to come out in support of Kelly now that he's headed for the unemployment line.
