Can Chip handle NFL spotlight?

THE BASEBALL manager cannot shake the image of an overmatched, backwoods rube . . . and he won a World Series and more games than any of his predecessors.

The football coach who was just fired achieved unprecedented success . . . and continually was depicted as an oafish, overweight, fumbling fool.

The hockey coach revels in confrontation, always rises to the fight.

The chip on the shoulder of the basketball coach is slightly smaller than the statue on top of City Hall, but it might weigh more.

Into this Chip Kelly walks.

Eyes wide open?

The Eagles on Wednesday hired Kelly from Oregon to succeed Andy Reid. Kelly might be the brightest offensive mind of his day.

Certainly, he delivers the most entertaining quips this side of Bum Phillips; but those quips sometimes carry a barb on their ends (http://twitter.com/chipisms).

It's safe to crack wise in Eugene and at bowl games, but will pithy play in Philadelphia?

Consider:

* Kelly never has coached in the NFL.

* Kelly never was a head coach until he got the job in Oregon, where people are, to make it blunt, pretty nice. He did not coach at a football factory such as Texas, Notre Dame or Florida, where expectations are more corporatized and where the people are . . . well . . . more focused on the football.

* Previously, Kelly spent time as an assistant at Columbia in New York; at New Hampshire in Durham, N.H.; and at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore . . . but, certainly, never was exposed to the sort of spotlight and the often mirthless hysteria that comes with coaching in the NFC East.

Can Kelly handle this sort of beast?

Reid could not.

Reid is a pleasant, playful man with deep wells of empathy. However, when at a podium,

Reid's dismissive and bullying manner and his impatience with the unenlightened translated into pure arrogance. Really, he seldom meant to offend; but, by the same token, he never connected. His 14 years were made harder for that.

Thursday, at an afternoon news conference, Kelly begins his NFL journey. He will make a first impression, and those are hard to overcome.

Reid conducted his introductory interview in the same condescending, oblique manner that marked most of his interactions with the public during his tenure. He displayed his awkward sense of humor, his habitual use of imprecise analogy.

Reid famously said, upon his hiring, "For me to sit here and give you a Picasso of Andy Reid, I'm not sure I can do that."

In many ways, of course, Reid that day painted a painfully accurate picture.

Then again, Reid lacks Kelly's gift for the glib.

Kelly's cutting wit and his clear view of the world could make him football's Wilde, or Twain.

Of course, Richard Nixon was a clever, clear-minded man, too.