Eagles offensive tackle Lane Johnson was the first draft pick of the Chip Kelly era, but Johnson wasn’t thrilled with what he saw of Kelly.
Johnson said that although Kelly’s obsession with sports science had some value, he felt as if Kelly focused more on sports science than on football.
“We major in sports science, which is good thing — we still do it here. But I think we kind of went overboard with that. I think a good way to put it is we majored in the minors instead of focusing on some of the main points that we needed to,” Johnson said on Steve Austin’s podcast, via Philly.com.
Johnson also did not agree with the personnel moves Kelly made.
“It was definitely exciting whenever he first came in, and we did some good things,” Johnson said. “Then we start getting rid of our best players. You’ve got DeSean Jackson, who can outrun everyone on the field. You’ve got Shady McCoy, who’s going to be one of the best running backs of all time. You just get rid of those guys just like that, and you set a tone. Players didn’t really like that.”
It’s been remarkable how quickly Howie Roseman and Doug Pederson turned the Eagles around: Kelly left them a mess, and in two years they won a Super Bowl.