Philadelphia Eagles

After disaster with Eagles, here's how Chip Kelly can do it right at his next NFL job

Published Dec. 30, 2015 2:40 p.m. ET

foxsports

PHILADELPHIA -- Press conferences to announce the firing of a head coach are always delicate, with the owner of a franchise standing in front of his fan base and expressing regret for the way things turned out while simultaneously wishing the departed coach the best in his future endeavors.

So it began here at the Eagles' facility on Wednesday afternoon when Jeffrey Lurie said he will "look forward to watching Chip (Kelly) succeed wherever he goes because I think he will."

Sift through those opening remarks and disclaimers, hang around for the later remarks, listen to the plan going forward and one will invariably get the real answers to why the move is being made. Because what the owner wants from his next coach is what he feels was lacking in his previous one.

And so it was for Lurie, about 17 minutes into his press conference, when a reporter asked him what he's looking for in a candidate.

Lurie listed the obvious -- "smart, strategic thinker," someone who "understands the passion of our fans" and has an "attention to detail" -- before dropping what might have been the most insightful quote of the press conference.

"Lastly, amongst many other things -- I've just mentioned a few..." Lurie began.

He was couching it as an oh-by-the-way remark, yet it might have been the most important statement he made.

"You've got to kind of open your heart to the players and everybody you want to achieve peak performance," he said. "And I would call it a style of leadership that values information, all the resources that are provided, and at the same time values emotional intelligence.

"I think in today's world, with the way businesses are run and sports teams are run, that's a combination that's not easy to have (but) a combination of all those factors creates the best chance to succeed."

Emotional intelligence.

Damn.

That is about as indicating a statement as Lurie could make regarding Kelly's failures as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles for the past two seasons and 15 games.

From the time Kelly arrived, he butted heads with LeSean McCoy, DeSean Jackson and Cary Williams. Among the things that irked Kelly was the rate of attendance for those players at optional offseason workouts. Specifically, what bothered him was that rate was less than 100 percent.

Kelly refused to clear the team to give McCoy a $100,000 workout bonus because he didn't show up for the requisite number of workouts. (McCoy didn't like it, but it's hard to blame Kelly on this one.)

Williams, who was coming off a Super Bowl title with the Baltimore Ravens, told the media he missed workouts because, in part, he was picking out sconces for the house he was building. (Telling Kelly or the Eagles' fan base that information was not smart, and he was vilified by both.)

And Jackson ... well, that relationship with the coach pretty much never had a chance.

All of these issues led to charges of racism from McCoy and even a suggestion of it by cornerback Brandon Boykin, who Kelly traded away this summer once he'd wrested control over personnel from Howie Roseman. Those suggestions were unfair and, by all accounts, inaccurate. After all, Kelly also cut guard Evan Mathis when he didn't show up for offseason workouts.

But the point is Kelly didn't do enough to correct those statements because he didn't do enough to connect with his players, period. In college, where the players are unpaid (save your jokes) and are out of there in four years, that approach can work. In the NFL, where the players get huge contracts, endorsement deals and copious amounts of attention, it requires a different approach.

They might be 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds, but they often have fragile psyches and egos that need massaging. Kelly didn't realize that, or at least not until it was far too late.

Lurie downplayed a recent report he spoke with disgruntled running back DeMarco Murray on the flight home from a win over the New England Patriots on Dec. 6.

"DeMarco had zero to do with it," Lurie said. "I talk to players on airplanes all the time."

OK, but a few seconds later, he added, "I talk to them all the time. I try to get a sense of the players and their concerns in the locker room at all times, all year round."

So to say Lurie didn't know there was discord between Kelly and the players would be a mistake.

"I know even the guys that toed the line weren't crazy about Chip," a veteran player with several friends on the Eagles texted FOX Sports on Tuesday, shortly after the team announced the firing.

Kelly's style also extended to the front office, where he made a push last offseason to take control over personnel from Roseman. That move, in and of itself, created tension in the building because there were two factions trying to coexist.

But the real issue came when Kelly met the media in March, two months after Lurie gave him control over personnel. It was his first session with reporters since the shakeup and he tried selling the media that it was Lurie's decision.

"I didn't think I needed control of the personnel," Kelly said at the time. "That was a decision our owner made."

Passing the buck. Not cool. We called him on it then. Watch below:

"I wanted to make Chip accountable for everything he wanted to have happen," Lurie said on Wednesday. "One of the ways to make him accountable was to have him make those decisions because that's what he insisted on decisively doing. If you want to make those decisions, be accountable for them."

I repeat: Damn.

For all of the talk before Kelly coached his first NFL game about whether his offensive style would translate to the NFL, perhaps everyone should've been asking whether his personality could make the jump.

Kelly still wants to coach at this level. That's what he told FOX's Jay Glazer. So he's not pulling a Nick Saban or Bobby Petrino and running back to college where he knows his approach will work.

But if he's going to stick in the NFL, even if it's coaching Marcus Mariota in Tennessee, he has to understand he can't continue to do things the way he did when he was coaching Mariota in Eugene.

There's nothing wrong with wanting your players to attend every offseason workout. And there's nothing wrong with wanting power over personnel. Kelly simply communicated and executed these things in the wrong way. He has to stop treating players and co-workers merely as commodities or science projects and more as people.

Kelly needs to look no further than up the Jersey Turnpike at Tom Coughlin, a man who might be coaching his final game on Sunday against the Eagles nearly nine years after many believed he was coaching his last game in Philly, for an example of a guy who learned to modify and soften his approach because that's what the NFL requires.

Kelly can, and should, do that. And if he does, he might prove Lurie right by succeeding wherever he goes.