Chip: defensive player of the month Barwin is versatile, unselfish
Chip Kelly lauded outside linebacker Connor Barwin Thursday for being versatile and unselfish. Barwin is the NFC defensive player of the moth for November.
Eagles coach Chip Kelly said Connor Barwin brings versatility and unselfishness to the Eagles' defense.
Barwin, an outside linebacker, Thursday was named NFC defensive player of the month for November. He leads the Eagles with 12.5 sacks (which ranks second in the NFL), and also is adept at blocking passes. Barwin notched six sacks in November. He won the AFC defensive player of the month award in November 2011, when he played for Houston.
"The one thing about Connor is, he truly just cares about the success of the defense," Kelly said Thursday, in his final media session before Sunday's meeting with the Seattle Seahawks. "He'll be the first to tell you that some of his sacks were the result of maybe Fletcher Cox stunting out, taking up two blockers, and he's coming off of it in a twist game. But also, we'll do the same exact thing (with Barwin, allowing someone else to go free). That and the fact that Billy (Davis, the defensive coordinator), can move him around and put him in a lot of different spots, I think, puts him in situations where he can make plays."
Other highlights:
*Kelly said that even though kicker Cody Parkey (groin) was a limited participant in yesterday's practice, he shuld be fine for Sunday.
*Kelly said he was happy for Jim McElwain, who is leaving Colorado State to take the Florida coaching job. A report had said Florida would attempt to contact Kelly, which he said did not happen. Kelly took issue with one report of his remarks yesterday, in which Kelly said he would not listen if Florida called him -- the report indicated Kelly had said he would "hang up." Kelly said he has too much respect for Florida to do that. He said he would have told the Gators he is happy where he is.
"I don't think our pro-style offense would work in college," Kelly joked. In the same vein, Kelly said that although his parents once lived in Fort Collins, he is not a candidate for the Colorado State job.
*Though Kelly's Eagles teams have never won when scoring fewer than 24 points, he said he won low-scoring games at Oregon and thinks he could win one in the NFL. He also said there is no way to know whether Eagles-Seahawks is going to be low-scoring or high-scoring.
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