Eagles' Chip Kelly has his mind set on type of players he wants

CONTRARY TO what LeSean McCoy would like to have you believe, it is not, nor has it ever been, about color or celebrity with Chip Kelly.

It is about work ethic and intelligence and commitment. It is about wanting smart players who, regardless of race, creed or salary-cap number, will buy into the Chip Kelly Plan and have an unquenchable desire to get better, no matter how much success they've already achieved.

It's about not going on ESPN and declaring yourself the best running back in the National Football League. It's about keeping your mouth shut and working hard to get even better, not seeking affirmation of how good you already are.

It's about eating right and sleeping right and training right and being fully committed to winning football games, not seeing how many runs you can make to South Beach and Las Vegas in a calendar year.

If you want to know what Kelly is looking for in a player, don't grab a roster and compare the number of white guys vs. black guys.

Check out the player bios and see how many have college degrees. Last year, the Eagles drafted seven players. Six graduated on time or early. The only one of this year's six draft picks who won't have his degree by the start of training camp is first-round wide receiver Nelson Agholor, and he's only a semester short.

The list of the 15 undrafted free agents they signed looks like something from a remake of GE College Bowl (Google it, kids). Academic All-Americas galore. Degrees in business and business management and political science and even biochemistry and molecular biology (Michigan State tight end Andrew Gleichert).

Kelly wants players who are willing to "buy in" to his system and are smart enough and driven enough to take what he teaches them and use it to make themselves better players.

"For Chip, it's about getting the right guys in place,'' said ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay. "Every time I talk to Chip, the phrase he always uses is 'guys that buy in.' He brings it up every single time I've talked to him. He wants to make sure he has a roster full of guys that are buying in.

"Whether it's the sleeping regimen or the nutrition or the mental aspect of it, he feels like now, more than ever as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, he has players in place that buy into what they want to do there and that, moving forward, are on the same page.''

One of the most important books on Kelly's bookshelf isn't Bill Walsh's "Finding the Winning Edge" or Vince Lombardi's "What It Takes To Be No. 1" or Tony Dungy's "Quiet Strength."

It's Carol Dweck's "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success." Dweck never coached football. She's a 68-year-old Stanford psychology professor who teaches courses on personality and social development.

Her book, published in 2008, deals with growth mindset vs. fixed mindset, which you probably don't care about, but is at the heart of what Kelly is looking for in the players he is bringing into the Eagles organization and many of the ones he is weeding out.

A fixed mindset, according to Dweck, is believing that all of your qualities, including intelligence and ability, are carved in stone and can't change in any meaningful way, which she says results in "trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you're secretly worried it's a pair of 10s.''

A growth mindset, she wrote, is believing that "the hand you're dealt is just the starting point for development. Growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.

"Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person's true potential is unknown [and unknowable]; that it's impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil and training.''

Kelly referenced growth mindset vs. fixed mindset last week when he was talking about his first-round pick, Agholor, who is the son of Nigerian immigrants.

"He's just dialed in as a football player,'' Kelly said. "He's in the Jordan Matthews category in terms of his approach to the game. Always striving to get better. I think the great thing about Nelson is he has a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset.

"He's one of those guys that's really a student of the game. I think you get excited when you're around guys like that. He's just trying to soak up everything that you can spit out in terms of being able to give him coaching points. He's always trying to get better, whether it's from a physical standpoint, improving himself physically, or a route-running standpoint, or just a mind standpoint in terms of how to run routes, how to do things and how he fits into the [offensive] scheme.

"He's exactly what we're looking for in a football player.''

Kelly wants players with a growth mindset who believe the harder they work the better they will continue to get. Contrary to what McCoy believes, he has absolutely no problem coaching stars. He just doesn't care much for coaching players with star mentalities, black or white.

Agholor's father is a janitor and his mother works in a nursing home. He said they have taught him to be humble and to understand that you have to earn everything you get in life, whether you're the 20th pick in the draft or an undrafted free agent.

When he met with the media last week after the Eagles selected him, he said his mindset is going to be to "kind of work like a peasant.''

If Kelly ends up with 53 players with that approach in September, this could be an interesting season.