NFL: Is the Chip Kelly experiment over?

Steve Spurrier won 122 games at Florida in twelve season’s by throwing the ball all over the field in his patented Fun and Gun offense. The Fun and Gun began in 1990 and was revolutionary at that time; Florida was the first team in the SEC to embrace passing and routinely led the conference in passing yards and points scored per game. While other teams during that time frame who embraced passing were average programs Florida excelled with it. Florida Spurrier won six SEC titles and a national championship during his tenure. During his first year at Florida Spurrier was quoted: “If you want to be successful you have to do it the way everybody does it and do it a lot better — or you have to do it differently.” After Florida, Spurrier coached with the Washington Redskins for two season’s bringing the Fun and Gun offense to the NFL. In his two seasons in the NFL Spurrier compiled a record of 12-20 with his offense finishing with an average of 19 points per game in his first season and 17 points per game in his second season. The innovative Fun and Gun offense was grounded by NFL defensive coordinator’s.

Another collegiate coach who embraced Spurrier’s philosophy of doing something different is Chip Kelly. While Spurrier embraced throwing the ball; Kelly embraced tempo and running the football. While at Oregon Kelly’s blur offense routinely scored over fifty points a game and would average 46, 47 and 49 points per game in his last three seasons at Oregon. Averaging over 45 points per game for three consecutive seasons is insane; those are PlayStation/X-Box type numbers. Every season that Chip Kelly was at Oregon (2009-2012) they were in the top five in rushing yards and yards per attempt. Looking deeper into the offense it was tempo married with creative formations that masked a few basic plays: inside zone, outside zone, power, and option plays.

Just like Spurrier Kelly took his offense to the NFL. His first season in Philadelphia was a huge success going 10-6 and making the playoffs. Offensively the Eagles ranked second in total yards and averaged over 150 rushing yards per game pacing the NFL. The following season Kelly again went 10-6 but the cracks in his team began to show; the running game dropped from 1st to 8th and the offense dropped from second to 4th in total offense. In Kelly’s third (and final) season with the Eagles he won the power struggle and became the head coach and general manager trading away his starting quarterback (Nick Foles), running-back (LeSean McCoy), signing Demarco Murray and Bryon Maxwell to high priced deals and topped it all off by signing another running back in Ryan Matthews. The results were disastrous as Chip Kelly was fired after going 6-9.

After that season Kelly was hired in San Francisco to be the head coach only (Trent Baalke won a power struggle with Kelly’s predecessor: Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh is doing quite well at Michigan and the 49ers are in contention for the overall number one pick in next year’s draft….seems to be a trend…..winning the power struggle is a pyrrhic victory). The 49ers have arguably the worst collection of skill players in the NFL, but with an offensive guru in Kelly the 49ers hoped they would at least be offensively competent…….they are not. Currently San Francisco is last in the NFL in total offense and only scoring just over 21 points per game.

So what happened to the offense that was rolling in college and his first two seasons in the NFL? The obvious answer is talent drain at the skill positions which is true but the Seahawks are very talented offensively and only scoring 20 points per game, the Bengals have arguably a better collection of skill players then the Seahawks but only scoring 18 points per game. Chip Kelly’s diminishing offense can be accredited to the following:

Pace: During the Chip Kelly era the Ducks would run 75-85 plays per game wearing out opposing defenses, creating defensive breakdowns and capitalizing on them. In the NFL Kelly’s offenses in Philadelphia and San Francisco would only run on average of 65 plays per game causing less confusion amongst defenses that have already adjusted to the No-Huddle attacks that Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have used in the past. Chip Kelly played fast but not fast enough to cause confusion in NFL defenses.

Adjustments: Good teams and coaches adapt and make adjustments. Chip Kelly has not. Inside zone, outside zone, power play within Kelly’s offense can be pre-read by defenses based on alignment of the tight end and running back. In addition Kelly’s past few quarterbacks (Michael Vick and Colin Kaepernick being the exception) have been pocket passers that pose no threat to run; keeping the unblocked backside defensive end able to close down on the tail-back with no repercussions. While running your quarterback ten to fifteen times a game is economically irresponsible at least having that threat will force that defensive end to stay at home.

Creativity (or lack their of): Every weekend NFL teams throw a new wrinkle into the game plan, a new formation, motioning a running back out of back-field or motioning a running back into the backfield. Something to throw off the defenses, and to see how they adjust to it. Joe Gibbs went to four Super Bowls (winning three) running the counter-trey, but ran the play out of countless formations and motions to keep the defense off-balance. In order for Chip Kelly to be successful he needs to go back to the creative formations and adjustments that were made during his tenure with the Ducks.

Much like Steve Spurrier Chip Kelly innovated offense was figured out by the NFL. I anticipate by the end of the year Kelly will have the same opportunity as Spurrier did after his NFL tenure: return to college and build up another program. Kelly might have the unique position to return to Oregon as Mark Helfrich has not carried on the winning tradition that Kelly built in Eugene.

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