Weekend Reading: Analyzing Chip

Here are some Eagles-related links to check out this weekend.

Marcus Hayes of the Daily News caught up with Joe Banner:

That’s why he loves how Kelly is destroying what Banner built. To Banner, growth occurs best through constant, remorseless change.

“Chip has the confidence that he and his coaching staff can prepare the replacement player to play,” Banner said. “How many times have we seen a coach start Player X, when most people believe Player Y is better, but Player X has the experience; then, Player X gets hurt, and Player Y finally gets to play, and is clearly better? It happens all the time.

“I’ve been preaching this for years.”

John Gonzalez of CSN Philly wonders what Chip Kelly is doing with the Eagles money:

Money. It was about money and cap space and you just can’t keep everyone. That was the company line last Wednesday. At that point, LeSean McCoy and Jeremy Maclin and Nick Foles were gone. Kiko Alonso and Byron Maxwell and Sam Bradford were in. Kelly said the Eagles would have loved to “keep everybody” and “pay everybody,” but he reminded us that it’s not baseball and they’re “limited by a cap number.” He said the “biggest factor” with McCoy was the money.

“The way we looked at it,” Kelly said, “is we got (LB) Kiko Alonso and (CB) Byron Maxwell for LeSean McCoy and the bottom line is almost every decision that you have to make is governed by money.”

Cool. Makes total sense.

The next day they signed DeMarco Murray. They gave Murray $21 million guaranteed, then tossed another $5 million guaranteed at Ryan Mathews. Between what they owe Murray, Mathews and Darren Sproles, the Eagles figure to have more money invested in running backs this upcoming season than any other team in the league, and it probably won’t be close.

Not so cool. Makes far less sense.

Tommy Lawlor of Iggles Blitz looks into a number of draft-related questions, including whether or not Kelly would consider drafting Washington CB Marcus Peters:

Back in the summer of 2010, Kelly was trying to convince Peters to come to Oregon to play for him. If Kelly still wants Peters, it will be much easier this time. Kelly would just have to draft him.

There are varying stories about what happened with Peters at Washington and why he was kicked off the team. The Eagles have scouts and other personnel who will get to the bottom of the situation and will know the real truth. If they think Peters is a good guy caught up in a bad situation, they’ll have a 1st round grade on him. If they think he has serious coachability issues, Peters might not even be on their draft board.

A note on a defensive back from Penn State’s Pro Day:

Adrian Amos watched film with the Philadelphia Eagles, also talked with the Houston Texans

— Aaron Wilson (@RavensInsider) March 20, 2015

Nate Allen is going to sue the Fort Myers police department, via Pro Football Talk:

Now Allen wants to hold the police accountable. Allen will sue the Fort Myers Police Department, his lawyer told TMZ, saying, “he’s a fighter, and he’s going to stand up for this community and its residents to have a fair shake when they interact with law enforcement.”

It’s officially draft season:

Just passing along. Don’t blame messenger: more than a few teams not happy Mariota said he doesn’t care if he goes No. 1 overall. — mike freeman (@mikefreemanNFL) March 20, 2015

Eliot Shorr-Parks of NJ.com reports on Connor Barwin’s comments regarding the improvement of the Eagles this offseason:

“I mean without a doubt, we drastically improved at the inside linebacker position with adding Kiko (Alonso), with adding Brad Jones, Najee [Goode] will be good, DeMeco [Ryans] will be back, and [Mychal] Kendricks,” Barwin said. “That’s as good as any inside group in the entire NFL, without a doubt.”

Phil Sheridan of ESPN.com believes the only thing odd about Kelly’s roster makeover is the timing:

What Chip Kelly has been doing isn’t that unusual. When he is doing it is very unusual.

Kelly became head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles two years ago. At that time, it would have been standard operating procedure for him to do a few basic things: root out some highly paid veterans who were mainstays of the previous coaching regime and who didn’t figure to be around when the team was prepared to contend, identify and acquire a young franchise quarterback to build the offense around and sign or draft some new core players who fit his system.

That sounds quite a bit like Kelly’s agenda for the past couple of weeks. He did a teardown of his offense, removing the quarterback, running back and the top wide receiver. He parted ways with pricy veterans like Todd Herremans, Trent Cole and Cary Williams. And he brought in Sam Bradford, who has a chance to be his cornerstone quarterback, along with DeMarco Murray, Byron Maxwell and Ryan Mathews.

But Kelly is just beginning his makeover of the team after two seasons. That’s a little peculiar.