Beating the defending NFC East champion Redskins wasn’t enough for new Eagles head coach Chip Kelly. On Tuesday he called the offense “slow,” even though the team ran 53 plays in the first two quarters.
For the record, the last time any team ran 53 plays before halftime was 15 years ago. In December of 1998 the Viking ran 56 plays in the first half against the Ravens .
Maybe Kelly is upset the Eagles only ran 24 plays in the final two quarters while Washington ran 49. Of course, Philadelphia had to slow down the pace after entering halftime with a 26-7 lead.
With that kind of lead teams intentionally slow down the pace to eat clock and protect it. Kelly’s problem actually had to do with how quickly his team was getting the ball to officials after plays. In his own words:
“I felt like it was slow. I’m not joking. We need to do a better job. We left the ball on the ground too much. We didn’t get the ball to the officials.”
Anyone who knows Chip Kelly from Oregon understands his game his based on speed. He added:
“We could have sped things up from a process in between plays. That’s something we need to work on.”
Luckily for Chip Kelly his players feel the same. Center Jason Kelce said, “we definitely have plays we can still go faster with” while also hinting he wasn’t sure why Philadelphia slowed down in the second half.
Overall, the Eagles ran a play every 22.2 seconds . The Redskins defense looked confused and exhausted at the end of the Eagles first drive.
If Kelly has conditioned his team to be able to hand his high speed game plan, the Eagles will have one of the most dangerous teams in the league. If they continue to put up scores in the 30’s, it could be one of the best offenses of all time.
But before anyone gets ahead of themselves, there are still 15 games to go. No one has any idea how the Eagles new offense will function week to week. It could be super effective one week while getting stuffed the next week.
Do you think Chip Kelly’s offense was too slow Sunday? Has Kelly brought the next great offense to the NFL?