Are Eagles better now than when Reid left?
Three years ago, the Eagles fired Andy Reid on New Year's Eve and searched for their next head coach until owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman landed Chip Kelly on Jan. 16.
Three years ago, the Eagles fired Andy Reid on New Year's Eve and searched for their next head coach until owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman landed Chip Kelly on Jan. 16.
This time around, Kelly was dismissed on Dec. 29, prior to the last game of the regular season, and the new search has commenced, with Lurie and Roseman once again leading the way, in conjunction with business-side president Don Smolenski.
The question on the table is a simple one: Are the Eagles better off now than they were three years ago? At which juncture would the team be considered closer to true contention?
Those are the kind of questions asked in an election year, so it seems fitting to apply them here. Lurie and Roseman don't need anyone's votes to remain in office, but their approval ratings would improve if they select a successful program-builder in the next few weeks.
On the surface, where success and failure is a simple matter of wins and losses, a 7-9 team looks better than a 4-12 team, which is what Reid left behind after his 14th season as head coach. On further review, however, that might not be the case, and the Eagles might actually be much farther from a championship than they were then.
If so, then Kelly really pulled off a difficult act. He came here, coached three seasons, left with a winning record and made the team worse. That's a pretty good trick. Let's see if it's true.
Reid's last season was a mess, the culmination of a two-year slide in which the Eagles went from a division championship to a floundering 8-8 record and then to the crash of 2012. Trying to hold things together, Reid had patched the defense of coordinator Juan Castillo with mercenaries, and was forced to juggle the offense between quarterbacks Michael Vick and rookie Nick Foles.
Statistically, the team wasn't awful. Both the offense and defense were ranked 15th in the league, but the players were being handled badly and they knew it. Reid fired Castillo in October, promoting backfield coach Todd Bowles, and he cleared out iconoclastic line coach Jim Washburn and sack-centric defensive end Jason Babin. Nothing was going to turn around that ship, however, and the Eagles lost 11 of their last 12. They finished 1-5 in a good division in which none of their three rivals had a losing record.
It was a mess Kelly inherited, but not an untalented one. The offense returned Foles (23 years old), LeSean McCoy (24), Jeremy Maclin (24), DeSean Jackson (26), and Brent Celek (27). The line was aging, but guard Evan Mathis (31) and tackle Todd Herremans (30) were still effective. Tackle Jason Peters (30) and center Jason Kelce (25) were both coming off injuries but were expected to fully recover.
The defense needed attention, particularly in the backfield, where Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Nnamdi Asomugha flamed out badly, but the 2012 draft had brought rookies Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks, Vinny Curry, and Brandon Boykin into the developing mix.
Kelly took that group and went to work building his culture. His philosophy of scheme trumping personnel was a success in the first season, as the Eagles took opponents by surprise, but it wore off badly in the following two seasons. The offense sagged as Kelly removed skill pieces such as Jackson, Maclin, and McCoy. The Eagles had the No. 2-ranked offense in 2013, No. 5 in 2014, and No. 12 in 2015. Even worse, and more indicative of the talent drain, the Eagles were No. 1 in yards/play in 2013, No. 11 in 2014, and No. 24 in 2015.
Struggling to catch its breath, and to adjust to a 3-4 alignment that didn't fit the personnel, the defense was never very good under Kelly and coordinator Bill Davis, ranked 29th, 28th, and 30th in the three seasons.
The team went 10-6 in 2014 and Kelly knew it wasn't as good as the record. He revamped it again for 2015, this time disastrously. What masked the true nature of the situation was a fortuitous number of return touchdowns provided by the defense and special teams over the last two seasons. Those are great plays, no question, but they can't be counted on. This season, when the offense didn't get any scoring help, the Eagles were 2-8. (Eleven of the team's 17 wins in 2014 and 2015 came in games in which the defense or special teams scored.)
So, what has Kelly left behind? Not much. The offensive line is in shambles, aside from Johnson. The skill players are question marks. Sam Bradford might be a good quarterback, but there's no guarantee he will remain here unless the team overpays him, either with a new contract or with the franchise tag.
Defensively, Cox is the star of the team, but he might be the only one. The defense could improve simply by not being on the field as often, but aside from Cox, Jordan Hicks (if healthy), Bennie Logan, Malcolm Jenkins, and maybe Brandon Graham, there isn't much there that can be depended upon.
Oh, one more thing, the Eagles have only one pick among the top 76 selections in the upcoming NFL draft.
So which is it? Would a new head coach be better off taking over the Eagles after the 2012 season or after the 2015 season? You decide. The hot candidates out there, with a few jobs among which to choose, certainly will.
