Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Surprisingly, a lot of people tend to forget that the incredible hype that has surrounded brand new Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly also brings a massive amount of pressure along with it.
Kelly has been an icon nation-wide ever since he introduced his completely original, totally innovative brand of spread offense to the world of major college football with the Oregon Ducks in 2007. After serving as Oregon’s offensive coordinator for two years, Kelly was promoted to head coach, where he remained for four years until Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie whisked him away from college football to join the NFL ranks early this spring.
Kelly will join a very small club of coaches who jumped right from the college ranks into a NFL head coaching spot; as most coaches spend years as a coordinator or assistant before hopefully striking gold.
This means that Kelly has immediate, tremendous pressure on him to succeed, or else he will be quickly thrown under the bus and out of the NFL, along with all of the other supposed hot-shots that couldn’t cut it.
The innovative, mile-a-minute, high octane spread-offense that Kelly is so famous for is what makes him such an attractive new coach. Kelly’s spread system has proven to be monstrously effective over the years, largely because it forces opposing defenses to keep a single unit on the field without substitutions.
In recent years, NFL and college defenses would systematically substitute certain defensive sets in and out of the game depending on the down and distance, and opposing offensive package. But Kelly’s no-huddle, up-tempo offense makes it impossible for opposing defenses to even gasp for air, let alone substitute players.
But the question remains; will Kelly’s spread system see success in the NFL?
I have every reason to believe that Kelly’s offense will translate beautifully into the professional ranks, and I look for him and his Eagles to break ground and soar to new heights in 2013.
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