Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly may be forced to slow down his high-speed offense, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Dean Blandino, NFL Vice President of Officiating, said teams will not be able to snap the ball until refs are ready for the play to begin.
"We have to make sure teams understand that they don't control the tempo, our officials do," said Blandino. "We're going through our normal ball mechanics; we aren't going to rush [unless] it's in the two minute drill."
This is a message that all NFL referees received this offseason. According to former VP of officiating Mike Pereira—a current analyst of FOX—the league held a clinic for officials and told them they should try to run all NFL games at the same speed. He said the referees "aren't goin to change just to accommodate someone's offense."
This may be a problem for Kelly who is known for running an extremely up-tempo offense while he was head coach of the Oregon Ducks. According to the Wall Street Journal, during one game Kelly’s offense averaged 23.2 seconds between plays—almost 33 percent faster than the normal college football pace.
According to ESPN.com, the Eagles head coach wants to snap the ball every 12 seconds. In fact, he’s even created signals that assistant coaches can issue from the sidelines that will indicate a specific play.
Last season at Oregon, Kelly’s offense ran an average of 82.8 plays per game (1,077 plays in total.) That would have ranked the Ducks seventh among NFL teams who play 16 games and put the college team two behind the Eagles who ran a total of 1,079 plays (67.3 plays per game.) The highest rank belonged to the New England Patriots who ran 1,191 plays, averaging 74.4 plays per game.
Blandino told the Wall Street Journal that he’s spoken with every coaching staff in the NFL and explained the referee’s will control the game’s tempo. He said he didn’t perceive any “overconcern” from Kelly, when he explained the discrepancies between the NFL and college rules to the Eagles coach.
There are a couple key differences between the NFL and college football that will affect Kelly’s gameplan. For example, the defense must be able to sub out a player if the offense does the same—no matter how fast the offensive substitution occurs. Also, the NFL requires its refs to get a new ball after a play goes out of bounds or a pass is incomplete.
ESPN Analyst Gerald Austin—a current referee instructor and extremely experienced former NFL official—seemed to try to quiet all the speculation in one simple sentence:
"Coach Kelly will not be playing as fast in Philadelphia as he did at Oregon."
