Eagles coach Chip Kelly brought a fast-paced offensive approach from Oregon to Philadelphia last year, and Kelly thinks that’s the direction that fast-paced football is flowing: From the lower levels to the highest level.
“I think it’s probably a trickle‑up effect,” Kelly said. “It’s kind of started at a lower level and moved up.”
Kelly said that when he was introducing some of his fast-paced concepts with the Eagles last year, he found that many players had experience with it in college or in high school, even if they hadn’t seen it in the NFL.
“So it’s not like when you start to introduce a concept to some people, they don’t understand it,” Kelly said. “There’s a lot of guys that are coming up through the college ranks that are now in the NFL that have done it at the college level. It’s just a matter of, how do you ‑‑ what are your mechanics to get it done. But I think that’s one of those things that’s kind of coming from the bottom up.”
Kelly is still keeping a close eye on college football, not just to evaluate potential future draft picks but also to keep an eye on how other coaches are running their teams.
“I watched Navy play Ohio State last week and Navy did some tempo and they just kept the same guys on the field all the time. But they have a great system in terms of what they do,” Kelly said. “I went as a scout. [Vice president of player personnel] Tommy Gamble was going down to the game and he was in in the morning and we were talking. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was going to Ohio State-Navy, and I told him I would jump in the car and go with him.”
Kelly never stops looking for an edge, and if he thinks he can find an edge at a college game, that’s where he’ll be.