One of the familiar storylines of the Eagles’ run to a Super Bowl title was the job that executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman did to overhaul the roster put together by Chip Kelly during his run as the team’s coach and de facto General Manager.
There weren’t too many positive things said about other aspects of Kelly’s time in Philadelphia either. His relationships with players and others in the organization led team owner Jeffrey Lurie to talk about his search for a coach with “emotional intelligence” and the Kelly era was generally treated as a dark one.
That didn’t stop Kelly, who is now the coach at UCLA, from enjoying what the team accomplished. Kelly told Les Bowen of Philly.com that he’s “really happy for them” and especially happy for Nick Foles, who starred at quarterback for Kelly in 2013 before his career went off track for a few years.
“Credit to Nick, because he’d been through so much,” Kelly said. “The cool part is, I think you knew on the first series just how calm, cool, and collected he was; the moment was not too big. He’s a special person, in so many ways. For him to finally win something like that is awesome. ... It was just vintage Nick Foles. Kind of stayed in the moment and played football. There’s not a better person that I’ve had an opportunity to spend time with than Nick ... It was a special year for him, a special year for that team, and a special year for the city. That’s awesome.”
Another former Eagles coach weighed in on the team’s success this week and Andy Reid had pretty much the same reaction to Philadelphia finally getting the Lombardi Trophy that’s eluded him throughout his career as a head coach.