Philadelphia Eagles

Aikman: I think we'll look back and say Eagles gave up on Kelly too soon

Published Jan. 27, 2016 3:52 p.m. ET

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There's at least one person out there that believes the Philadelphia Eagles gave up a bit too quickly on Chip Kelly.

In an interview on "Breakfast on Broad," Troy Aikman was asked to give his input on the Eagles' situation with Kelly. And, well, Aikman believes Philadelphia canned a coach who had two 10-win seasons awfully fast, and the San Francisco 49ers made a pretty good choice in hiring him.

"The first two years they played well," Aikman said. "They won ten games, (which is) not easy to do. I like Chip Kelly. There's some things that he does philosophically that I don't necessarily agree with, but I think he's an excellent football coach. I think he's influenced this game long before he got into the NFL. I think he was a great hire by San Francisco."

"I really believe we'll look back on this and we'll say Philadelphia gave up on him too soon," Aikman continued, "The fact that you can win 10 games in back-to-back years, be in the hunt for a division title -- even though the division, as I said (earlier), was poor -- it tells me there was a lot more to this than just what happened on the field. There must have been a lot going on behind the scenes that I'm unfamiliar with."

Kelly, of course, did have some quarrels that were known in the football world outside of Philadelphia. There was the numerous accusation that Kelly was racist. And while that is definitely up for debate, Kelly was simply a tyrant with his football team. His most recent offseason saw him ship out his top running back (LeSean McCoy), his top passer (Nick Foles) and allow his top receiver to walk away (Jeremy Maclin), all of whom were in the heart of their prime. They didn't play Kelly's way, and he wanted to get specific players that fit his own system.

The problem is, that system didn't exactly work this year. And that aggressive nature made Kelly look like a clown in Philadelphia. His misuse of DeMarco Murray added to that notion, and it clearly wasn't a pretty mix.

Is Kelly a good football coach? Of course, his resume speaks for itself. And that makes one thing clear in Philadelphia: Either Aikman is right, and the Eagles gave up on Kelly far too quickly, or Kelly would simply never work out in Philadelphia.

Tommy Chalk writes about the NFL and NHL for FOX Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @Tommy_Chalk