I tend to take what a center says seriously. Centers are the heart and soul of a football offense. Often, like Matt Birk, they are gifted with near-genius IQ’s. Eagles center Jason Kelce reminds me a lot of a young Matt Birk. Generally when he speaks it bears listening. Kelce didn’t go to Harvard like Birk did, but he probably would have qualified academically.
Maybe you’d like to give Jason Kelce an occasional dose of the “STFU” elixir. But the fact is he speaks from the heart as not just an employee of the Eagles but as a fan of the organization.
This young man wants his team to win.
So when he says publicly that the Eagles were better off missing the playoffs last season, you should lend an ear with a little bit of critical thought invested in the notion.
What was Kelce trying to communicate?
According to Phil Sheridan of ESPN.com: If the Eagles had won another game or two and reached the playoffs, coach Chip Kelly might not have been as motivated to remake the roster during this offseason.
That’s what I heard in Kelce’s comments, too. So did our esteemed poster from the Great Northwest, PPW…
Kelce amplified: “It forced the coaches, it forced the organization, to re-evaluate what we had.”
That’s what I love about centers— they almost always speak in terms of “we”…
“In all honesty, we started off 9-3,” Kelce said last Thursday. “We started off really, really good and we got lucky quite a few times to win games we probably shouldn’t have been in. And I think the fact that we ended the season the way we did, didn’t make the playoffs, in hindsight it’s almost a good thing because it forced the coaches, it forced the organization, to re-evaluate what we had.”
“And really, guys all of a sudden that are on the bubble, now all of a sudden they know for sure, ‘We need to upgrade there. We need to make an upgrade at this position. We need to do this, we need to do that to improve as a whole.'”
Okay, our own analyst from Henderson, Nevada, the extremely intelligent ATV (Chris Rugierro) makes a valid counterpoint, to the effect that if the Birds had just gotten into the playoffs, anything could have happened. You can’t win if you don’t play. Nobody should ever discount the opportunity to make the playoffs. Getting into the dance is always better than not getting in. Losing in the playoffs would have given Kelly the same chance to re-evaluate what we had, too.
But Kelce saw it as an either-or prospect.
Again, Phil Sheridan: “It isn’t clear exactly when Kelly decided that his roster wasn’t quite up to championship par. It is true that the Eagles won games by coming from behind — especially the season opener against Jacksonville, the first game against Washington and the game in Indianapolis.”
“If the Eagles had lost even two of those games, they would have been 5-3 when quarterback Nick Foles got hurt. Their three-game December losing streak would not have been as startling as it was.”
“But how would Kelly have reacted if the Eagles had gone 12-4 and won a playoff game? Would that have changed his thinking on Foles? As it was, Kelly traded Foles, who was 6-2 as a starter. He re-signed Mark Sanchez, who was 4-4 as a starter. So last year’s results were not the be-all, end-all of Kelly’s evaluation process.”
“The Eagles’ secondary was not any better in 2013. Kelly gave cornerbacks Cary Williams and Bradley Fletcher another year, then decided to make changes after 2014. Would Kelly have felt any different if the Eagles had managed to sneak into the playoffs again?”
“Bottom line: If Foles, McCoy and the secondary had great seasons, the Eagles likely would have made the playoffs. In that case, Kelly would not have made so many changes. But that would have been because he’d gotten great seasons from key players, not merely because the team reached the playoffs.”
“Kelce’s point was that the team needed to make upgrades based on the performances it actually received. And missing the playoffs triggered those upgrades.”
Jason Kelce summed up his thoughts: “I think we’ve made a lot of really good acquisitions this offseason. I think we’ve got a lot of really, really good football players that are going to be able to help us win football games and I’m excited to be a part of it.”
Kelce is talking about talent, character, brains, competitive spirit, drive, determination, toughness and discipline in himself and his teammates. He wants it across the board. That’s how most centers think.
I think that’s what he’s really trying to tell us— that Kelly was more inclined to upgrade the players he inherited in that key mix of qualities based upon his failure to make the playoffs in 2014.
Peter King believes in the Eagles’ upgrades enough to have them ranked 7th in his power rankings.
It’s an interesting cloud of debate surrounding this team. It’s not the overwrought shower of optimistic euphoria which shrouded the horribly out-of-balance talent profile of the 2011 remake.
This remake is more about realistic expectations based upon healthy personnel and true grit. It’s about depth of the backups, too, and less about banking on the stars.
The coaching staff is key, too. No more egomaniacal position coaches trying to impress Big Red… Kelly has assembled a corporate group of dedicated technicians who are satisfied professionally in their combined roles of building a better product.
You can question the somewhat goofy reaches for the quarterback function on this team… but you have to realistically agree with Kelce that the overall changes made in personnel for 2015 are designed for the betterment of a team that in fact failed to reach the playoffs in 2014.
And yes, I agree with ATV— probably could have figured out the upgrade needs just as well if we had lost in the playoffs last year, too.
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