It took him longer than usual to materialize. After the Eagles lost to the Cowboys, 20-10, at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday, Chip Kelly stayed in the locker room for a while. He said he was talking to the team and telling the Eagles that they need to stick together and figure it out. When he addressed the media, Kelly admitted that they don’t have anything figured out. Not right now. Not on any front. And definitely not in the running game.
“If we can’t run the football,” Kelly said, “we’re not going to win many football games.”
The Eagles ran for 7 yards. Total. As a team. It took them 17 carries to do it. Quick math: That works out to 0.4 yards per rush. DeMarco Murray — who led the league in rushing last year — carried the ball 13 times. He finished with two yards. By contrast, the Cowboys rushed for 113 yards. That wasn’t a very good total, either, but in comparison to the Eagles it was quite a lot. It should be noted that before Tony Romo left the game with a clavicle injury, he had one run for 12 yards. His replacement, Brandon Weeden, ran the ball three times for 11 yards. Neither man is swift. Both men out-rushed the Eagles. Not good.
When pressed on it, Kelly pointed to the offensive line’s blocking (or lack of same). He said the Cowboys weren’t doing anything new but the Eagles “just didn’t block them.”
“It was very disappointing,” Kelly continued. “We couldn’t get anything started. I don’t the running backs had time to assess if there was a hole. Too much penetration up front. Too many guys in the backfield.”
Do they have the guys upfront to get the job done, someone asked?
“[Sunday] we didn’t,” Kelly replied.
He wasn’t kidding about that, or when he said, “nothing worked [Sunday].”
More from Kelly after the game …
• Sam Bradford completed 23 of 37 passes for 224 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. One of those interceptions came in the end zone when Bradford locked on his receiver and fired an ill-advised ball into the hands of Sean Lee that ended a 10-play, 58-yard drive.
“I’m sure he probably wants that one back,” Kelly said.
But here, again, Kelly seemed to place the blame on the offensive line.
“I don’t think he had a lot of time on some of those,” Kelly said. “We had a couple of drops on key third downs that could have extended drives and gotten us into a rhythm.”
• There was also a botched snap between Jason Kelce and Bradford later in the game (see 10 observations). After the Cowboys coughed up the ball and the Eagles were only down 10, Kelce hiked the ball before Bradford was ready and possession went back to Dallas. It was a killer sequence for the Eagles.
“We weren’t even set" Kelly said. "We hadn’t even started our cadence. I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to [Kelce] and see what happened. We didn’t have a cadence and the ball was snapped.”
• Despite Bradford’s struggles at times, and despite the fact that the Eagles clearly needed an offensive spark, Kelly said the coaches didn’t consider pulling Bradford for backup Mark Sanchez. The head coach added, however, that the team is “going to evaluate everything.”
“We’re going to evaluate everybody,” Kelly said. “That includes the coaches. That includes everybody.”
• When asked whether the Eagles “got rid of too many playmakers in the offseason,” Kelly said he doesn’t think so. But are the failures of the first two games owed to talent or execution?
“It’s execution and it’s coaching,” Kelly said.
• See if this sounds familiar and if it reminds you of anyone we listened to in postgame press conferences for 14 years.
“We’re not doing a good enough job,” Kelly said. “We’re not putting those guys in position to make plays.”
