Chip Kelly is a man of few words. The only problem with that isn't his brevity; it's that those words aren't often truthful. Kelly is the classic omission and semantic liar - he'll use specific language to confirm or, more often, deny something, doing whatever he can to avoid being nailed down. This tact was on full display this week at the NFL's owner's meetings when Kelly, now the top boss for the San Francisco 49ers, told reporters that he really didn't have anything to do with the monster contracts his former team, the Philadelphia Eagles, handed to DeMarco Murray and Byron Maxwell last offseason.
In a way, Kelly is telling the truth - he doesn't negotiate contracts. The guy whose name he refused to utter, Eagles GM/not GM Howie Roseman, did and does. So Kelly, seeking to distance himself from those mistakes, can truthfully say with a straight face that he had nothing to do with the contracts because, really, he didn't. But he had everything to do with those players signing in Philly, certainly knew full-well what it would take to get their names in pen on the dotted line.
What Kelly didn't say at the owner's meetings, but what is reportedly circling behind the scenes around the league, is his belief that Roseman was the real reason he got canned by Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie.
According to the rumor, Kelly thinks that Roseman, a guy he "neither likes nor respects," is the person "most responsible" for the demise of his Eagle tenure.
Assuming the report is accurate, it's safe to assume it's coming from someone in Kelly's camp, which means it's coming from Kelly. So really, it's not out of character for the Niners head coach at all to lay blame for his own failures at someone else's feet.
Kelly spread the blame around pretty well at the owner's meetings this week, implicating everyone but himself for the struggles of the Eagles last season.
Lurie? He wanted to give Kelly power. Kelly didn't ask for it after Tom Gamble was fired.
Roseman? He was the one making all the free agent decisions. Kelly just did what he was told, made due with the pieces he was handed.
It's an interesting take and, based on things Kelly said at the time, patently untrue.
Only Kelly's comments regarding the odd structure of the Philly front office seemed to carry water. Roseman, Don Smolenski and Lurie comprised an odd trifecta of decision-makers without a clear-cut lead voice (you'd assume Lurie, but he's the owner and the good ones usually know to stay out of the way when it comes to football decisions). Kelly probably chafed at Roseman, a lawyer by trade, offering opinions on players the team should and shouldn't chase, and Roseman surely developed a distaste for Kelly after he was banished to the business side of the organization.
Parsing the truth from Kelly, Lurie and Roseman's interviews this week isn't easy, and really, we may never know what exactly transpired in 2015 at One Novacare Way.
But one thing is certain - Kelly owns as much blame for the failures in Philly as Roseman or Lurie or anyone else.
What remains to be seen is if any of them actually learned anything from the experience.
