At a time when one of his quarterbacks wants to know who the starter will be, Eagles coach Chip Kelly continues to face questions about his offense.
Based on the transcript provided by the team, Kelly was coy about the topic.
‘There’s always been talk of the option and what works in the NFL,” Kelly is asked. “Is that a fallacy?”
“Is it a fallacy that we run quite a bit of it?” Kelly says, meeting question with question. “Yes.”
“No, that it can’t work in the NFL?”
“I don’t know,” Kelly responds. “Ask the San Francisco 49ers if Jimmie [Harbaugh] thinks it’s a fallacy or [Seahawks head coach] Pete Carroll or [Seahawks quarterback] Russell Wilson. It’s not like we’re doing something that someone hasn’t done in this league. I don’t know. I’ve seen [49ers quarterback Colin] Kaepernick run up and down the sidelines. Maybe people think it’s a fallacy because the ball is in the other guy’s hands.”
And so just when it looked like Kelly is all in with the option play, he pulled back.
“If you watch us, we may run two of them in practice,” Kelly explained. “We don’t come in here and say we’ve got this play that no one knows about, watch it, and we run it twice. We have an offense that has a great size to it in terms of what we’re doing, that’s just one small part of it. It’s a weapon to be used. It’s a tool in the toolbox. If that situation comes up, you use that tool. If that situation does not come up, we may not use that tool. But we have it in our toolbox, and what we want to do in our offense is have enough tools in our toolbox that we can compete every Sunday. And then take those tools out.”
Of course, the tools used depend largely on the craftsmen using them. If Mike Vick is the quarterback, the option tool becomes more plausible. If it’s Nick Foles or Matt Barkley, that tool likely stays in the box.
The comments come at a time when Vick has been venting his frustrations regarding the ongoing quarterback competition. He wants Kelly to name a starter before camp. Regardless of the timing, the decision will go a long way toward determining how often the Eagles will be running the option.