What Eagles fans can expect going forward: Uncertainty, yet Optimism

Veteran Todd Herremans was released by the Eagles. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

Written by Darrin Williamson

Eagles’ head coach Chip Kelly, the sultan of all team personnel decisions even before we knew it, first released Desean Jackson because of concerns of work ethic, and whatever else one could think of.

Then Lesean McCoy is traded to the Buffalo Bills, Trent Cole & Todd Herremans are released, Cary Williams & Bradley Fletcher GONE! And even Nate Allen was shown the door; something was happening in Philadelphia.

One couldn’t fathom with all the talent the Eagles had beforehand was supposed to be built around, but no—-Kelly had a different approach to this dynamic.

The ultimatum to these decisions was to make a big splash. Kelly has inherited the reigns free to drive the stainless steel impala that is the Philadelphia Eagles into whatever direction it is he wants to go. This transformation started when Kelly was hired, and we’re now witnessing it come to pass.

Kiko Alonso has not played at all since 2013 which doesn’t seem too alarming to Kelly because he believes in his sports’ science regimen, which includes delightful fruit smoothies (center Jason Kelce’s contains blueberries, avocado, 2% milk and vanilla protein powder).The OptimEye trackers; of which the Eagles have about 55, help record a player’s movements through the course of a practice, allowing coaches to quantify acceleration, agility and the percentage of time the player is running at max speed versus standing around.

An ACL tear is hard to come back from so what Chip Kelly is trying to prove to fans is that his program is so revered that it can replenish the durability of a player who has a gruesome injury history? How is that so one would ask, well Kelly loves the doubters. So Kelly goes out and over compensates a seven year 6^th round pick in Byron Maxwell to a deal that seems perplexing in its own right, but he was destined for that money & the Eagles needed that illustrious shutdown cornerback to somewhat boost a secondary that ranked near the bottom of the NFL last year.  He then replaces McCoy with last year’s leading rusher Demarco Murray (who has a injury history also).

Experts were astonished at this deal, and you can kind of grasp the uncertainty of where Kelly wanted to steer this impala after all. There was no reasoning behind the signing basically since they already pried Ryan Matthews from the San Diego Chargers, so people looked at it, and put the typical spin on it saying that “Chip Kelly needed to make a deal, so out of nervousness he did so.”

It doesn’t stop there as fans can picture Kelly dangling strings saying “dance puppets”, only to see on the other side of those strings a somewhat of an upright Eagle losing feathers, and wounded. Then a deal springs up, Nick Foles is going to St Louis for washed up, injury riddled Sam Bradford. Once again the questions are brought up, why Bradford? Well this sports science program, and a little luck for the sake of making a clear statement to the rest of the league has been made totally clear. Chip Kelly does not operate on the acceptance of outsiders; it’s either his way or the highway.

With that being said, Eagles’ fans have to prepare for an unpredictable ride to success or total failure. Are you on board Eagles Nation?