LeSean McCoy wrong about Chip Kelly

It is understandable that McCoy may still be annoyed that Kelly traded him to the Buffalo Bills and snip at him, but McCoy's comments in an upcoming issue of ESPN The Magazine are ridiculously outrageous.

"I think that's the way he runs his team," McCoy told Mike Rodak in a question-and-answer story. "He wants the full control.

"You see how fast he got rid of all the good players, especially all the good black players. He got rid of them the fastest. That's the truth. There's a reason.

"It's hard to explain with him. But there's a reason why he got rid of all the black players, the good ones, like that."

Sometimes the stupidity of a statement speaks for itself.

When overtones of racial bias and preferences are introduced concerning someone, it is too dangerous to leave unaddressed.

McCoy implies the actions of Kelly and the Eagles hierarchy, up to owner Jeffery Lurie, are racist.

They must be since they have acquiesced to Kelly, i.e. Simon Legree, purging the organization of any black player with a high degree of talent.

Winning a Vince Lombardi Trophy be damned.

According to McCoy, a silver-coated Confederate flag is what Kelly most seeks to showcase at the NovaCare Center.

Defending Kelly is almost pointless.

Those with common sense already know that a coach who cannot accept black players is not going to succeed in a league in which 67.3 percent of the players are African-American.

It would be career suicide for Kelly to get rid of his good black players.

Those inclined to agree with McCoy are so entrenched in a mindset of racial bias that even the most logical argument against McCoy will not register with them.

For the record, the most prominent argument against McCoy is that Kelly has replaced the good black players he let go with . . . wait for it, wait for it, wait for it . . . other good black players.

Wide receiver DeSean Jackson was replaced as the No. 1 receiver by Jeremy Maclin, a black receiver who finished with more catches, receiving yards and touchdown receptions over 20 yards than Jackson last season.

Maclin signed with the Kansas City Chiefs and Kelly responded by using the Eagles' 2015 first-round pick to select University of Southern California receiver and All-America punt returner Nelson Agholor - a black player who was born in Nigeria.

Free-agent running back DeMarco Murray, an African-American who had a league-leading 1,845 yards for Dallas last season, replaced McCoy.

Murray had over 500 more rushing yards than McCoy and ran for eight more touchdowns. He had 15 rushes of more than 20 yards compared to nine for McCoy.

In three drafts with Kelly as coach, the Eagles have selected nine players in the first three rounds. Those high rounds should produce starters and stars.

Of the nine players, only offensive lineman Lane Johnson and tight end Zach Ertz are not black.

Kelly has removed players that do not fit the system he wants to run or the culture he wants to establish with the Eagles.

He just traded quarterback Nick Foles, who had a Pro Bowl season under Kelly, to the St. Louis Rams for quarterback Sam Bradford, who is coming off ACL tears in consecutive seasons.

McCoy either did not consider Foles a star player with the Eagles or failed to mention him because a white quarterback being traded for a quarterback who is an official citizen of the Cherokee Nation does not fit his narrative.

The reality is that Kelly does what every NFL coach does - he gets rid of players who do not fit what he wants to do and acquires those that do.

There is no racial agenda.

Still, we know why a race element can be tossed into the mix when Kelly makes a player move. It is part of the legacy of Riley Cooper.

Once Kelly decided to keep Cooper, a white receiver after he was videotaped using the N-word, anything Kelly does involving a black player can be subjected to accusations of racial preference.

ESPN talking head Stephen A. Smith stoked the flames on the March 9 episode of "First Take." Smith questioned the intent of Kelly's "culture building" because the Eagles removed Jackson, McCoy and Maclin while Cooper was retained.

When people lashed out on Smith, saying he had called Kelly a racist, the flamboyant talker fired back angrily to defend himself.

"Apparently, I haven't even had the opportunity to pass gas before I'm amidst controversy because a bunch of idiots in the world of Twitter and beyond saw me on First Take today speaking about Chip Kelly," Smith said later that day on his national radio show. " . . . and essentially are trying to create story lines and headlines by accusing me of calling Chip Kelly a racist. Ladies and gentlemen, I did no such thing."

McCoy can be included in the "bunch of idiots."

"Oh, man. People have heard it. I mean . . . Stephen A. Smith had talked about it. Other players have talked about it," McCoy says in the article " . . . When [Kelly got to Philadelphia], I didn't know what to expect. When he let DeSean Jackson go last year, I was like, 'C'mon DeSean Jackson?' So it is what it is."

Yes, it is what it is; nobody denies that.

Kelly's motivations, however, are just not what McCoy in his anger and ignorance has elected to label them as.

Columns: ph.ly/Smallwood

Blog: ph.ly/DNL