Bill Belichick ‘Disappointed’ By Eagles Firing Kelly

Two days after the Eagles fired Chip Kelly, a friend of the former coach came to his defense. Bill Belichick talked extensively today with Patriots reporters about why he disagreed with Jeffrey Lurie’s decision, according to CSN New England.

“Yeah, I would say it’s actually disappointing,” Belichick said. “Chip Kelly to me is a really good football coach. He does a great job. I think he’s done a good job with that team. It’s disappointing to see, you know, Josh [McDaniels] in Denver . . . There’s a lot of examples. But pretty much everybody’s on a one-year contract in this league. I don’t know how you build a program in one year.

“Chip’s a great coach. He’ll end up somewhere, and he’ll do a great job there. I’d say a lot of the players that were on the Eagles that are no longer on the Eagles aren’t really doing too much for anybody else, either.”

While some of the players Kelly discarded — such as Nick Foles — have struggled elsewhere, others — including DeSean Jackson and LeSean McCoy — have played well. After Kelly let go of some of his most talented weapons, the Eagles played poorly this season and posted a 6-9 record.

According to Belichick, however, Kelly deserved more time.

“You’re going to have to go through a lot of tough situations,” Belichick said. “Tough games, tough losses, tough stretches in the season, whatever it happens to be. To build that up over time, it doesn’t happen in training camp. I mean, look, training camp’s training camp but those games don’t count. Even in the early part of the season, you might have some tough games, but it’s not like playing in January, playing in December. It takes some time to go through that. I don’t think there’s any shortcut to it.

“I mean, I know there’s a lot of other people in the league who think there is. Like, they’re just instant — after two weeks all of a sudden after two weeks, everything’s going to change dramatically. I’m not really a part of that. I don’t buy into that.”

Much has been made about the “culture” Kelly tried to create in Philadelphia, which Belichick also spoke on.

“You have to change the culture. Normally one coach is different from the previous coach. You don’t see a lot of, whoever the first coach is, the second coach is a carbon copy of the first coach, the third coach is kind of a carbon copy of the second coach. I mean, you rarely see that,” he said.

“That means you’re going to turn over a high percentage of the roster, because the players that the other coach had don’t fit the new philosophy. A lot of the players are going to have to change, in part because of the philosophy, in part because of the scheme. Those role-type players, now that role’s not needed in the new scheme, and a different role’s needed so you need different players.”