Why Chip Kelly will fail in Philadelphia

Former Oregon head coach Chip Kelly has a lot of work to do with the Philadelphia Eagles, but no matter how hard he may try to succeed in the NFL he will ultimately not succeed on his first try in the professional ranks.

This isn’t to bash Kelly as a head coach, but the chances of a head coach from the college ranks succeeding in the NFL with no experience in the NFL is rare. Jimmy Johnson’s don’t grow on trees, and overwhelmingly college coaches with no experience in the NFL fail their first time.

Steve Spurrier, Bobby Petrino, Lou Holtz and Dennis Erikson all college coaches that came from great college programs failed. Everybody will bring up Jim Harbaugh, as a rebuttal, but you have to remember that Harbaugh played in the NFL as a quarterback from 1987-2001.

Harbaugh was also the quarterbacks coach for the Oakland Raiders from 2002-03. Harbaugh has been in the NFL long enough to know how the system works, and make it work to his advantage.

Kelly has zero experience in the NFL as a player or as a coach. Not to mention he is inheriting a badly drafted team that will have a lot of what made it successful gone due to cap space.

The only shining light for Kelly is found in Jimmy Johnson and Paul Brown. Johnson who spent his entire career before the Dallas Cowboys in the college ranks crafted a team that made three Super Bowl runs.

While Paul Brown spent his time in college before taking over the head coaching duties over the Cleveland Browns in 1946, and crafted three NFL Championship teams in the 50s. Kelly could be the next Jimmy Johnson or the next Paul Brown, but history has shown that college coaches with no experience in the NFL are almost never successful their first go around.

It will be interesting to watch how Kelly becomes acclimated to the pro game, but his chances of success on the Eagles are slim to none at this point.

James Cobern is an NFL writer for TPF and can be contacted at JCobern@ThePenaltyFlagBlog.com.