National Football League

Kelly: Vick will have to earn QB job

Published Jul. 14, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Chip Kelly isn't messing around. And we don't just mean the team diet.

The new Philadelphia Eagles head coach will not simply hand the keys to the starting quarterback job back to Michael Vick, who missed six games last season with a concussion. Vick will have to earn it.

"It's not different than any other position," Kelly said, according to USA Today Sports. "I understand more scrutiny is made on the quarterback position than anything else. Every day we come off the practice field, (the media) wants to know, 'How did the quarterbacks do?' No one was like, 'How did the gunner on the punt team do?'"

With training camps set to kick off this month, the 33-year-old Vick will enter into a competition primarily with Nick Foles, who started the games Vick missed in 2012, and also with rookie Matt Barkley.

Despite pressure to name the quarterback early, Kelly is staying firm in his desire to let the performance do the talking and has some speculating that the decision won't come until shortly before the regular-season opener.

"Everywhere I've been, it has played itself out on the field," Kelly said.

This may well be Vick's final year with the Eagles — making Foles or Barkley more attractive long-term options — but Kelly says he's not simply taking the future into account with the decision.

"My job is to win right now," Kelly said. "How do you think I'd be received in Philly if I told (people) we were going to write this year off? We're not writing anything off. We're going out there to compete and see how it falls."

We'll see how it plays out. Foles, if you recall, didn't exactly set the world on fire in his cameo under center. He threw six touchdowns and five interceptions total for a quarterback rating of 79 in the seven games in which he played. Vick, with 12 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 10 games, didn't fare much better.