Physical, Tough, Blue Collar Football

I saw this coaching clinic excerpt from Chip Kelly, provided here by Matt Lombardo, where he talked about his running back getting into the line and getting yards because we play blue collar football and we dont want the back tinkle footing it to try for a homerun. I like that approach for Philadelphia which is as blue collar as it gets. I must admit that at first I was "shook" with all the changes as Kelly literally replaced proven players like DeSean, Mike Vick, LeSean, and Maclin and not all the players brought in were proven replacements. The players he brought in all had common traits though and that's they are hard nosed physical players. Jordan Matthews, Josh Huff, Ryan Mathews, and the hardest of them all DeMarco Murray all play a physical brand of football and that's a style of football that's radically different from past years in Philadelphia. 

 

DeMarco Murray, who I didn't start looking at until Michael Irvin said on 97.5 the Fan that the Eagles were favorites because of DeMarco, is downright physical and nasty as a running back. I watched Dallas' games from the 2014 season and just wanted to view DeMarco (in my head from Chip's viewpoint) and I honestly came away saying Chip is going for a hard nosed team starting in the run game.  I wont call out players but I can see where Chip said I have to deconstruct this thing if we're going to really compete for a Super Bowl while I'm here because we're not going to compete with the top teams with this finesse brand of players that Andy Reid built in his time here.

Andy Reid, who liked to outsmart you with a 1000 page playbook, built a small fast team that was a reflection of his philosophy and those teams could not compete with the physical teams in the tournament. There was still a faction of those types of players still on the team and the result was the same. The old saying is "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" and that's what the Front office was doing. It was the lets "hope" we get hot in the tournament and let's see what happens, problem is what's happened for this team is it cant get off the field defensively or get that clutch play offensively when everything is on the line. Are we insane or is it time for a new way?

We are bound to find out in 2015 and Im not insane!