49ers Fan Perspective: Weighing in on San Francisco’s New Head Coach Chip Kelly
By Peter Panacy
Every so often, Niner Noise receives contributions from readers and fans wanting to chime in on the San Francisco 49ers. In this edition, Richard Madrid offers his take on why the hiring of head coach was the right thing for the Niners organization.
Yesterday’s hiring of head coach Chip Kelly by the San Francisco 49ers may be divisive and controversial. Casual observation on Twitter and other social media channels can easily point this out.
But one has to at least give credit to the 49ers front office for taking a huge shot on a head coach who is both commanding and polarizing. San Francisco did not go with a “yes man” head coach — a notion generally felt by last year’s hiring of former coach Jim Tomsula.
Richard Madrid, a longtime fan of the 49ers, CSU Fullerton grad and former United States Navy lieutenant offered up his own opinions on the Kelly hiring in a special editorial to Niner Noise.
It’s worth the read, and Madrid’s perspective on Kelly may give you a different opinion on why the 49ers made the right move.
So let’s turn the floor over to this 49ers fan.
WHY I LIKE WHAT CHIP KELLY HAS TO OFFER
The San Francisco 49ers concluded their two-week long coaching search by hiring former Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly on Thursday. Fan reaction has largely been a mix of good, bad, and indifferent but mostly tilted toward the negative. Everything from “I am sick for this team,” to “this is the worst hire ever” to “they’re doomed to fail now” all speak to a fanbase that’s understandably concerned.
But I like the hire. And here’s why.
As 49ers fans, we’re used to a certain culture of winning that largely began in the 1980s under head coaching great Bill Walsh and continued with sustained success through the firing of Steve Mariucci. We experienced a low period that saw coaches like Dennis Erickson, Mike Nolan and Mike Singletary that never had better than an eight-win season.
Enter Jim Harbaugh, and the team went from 6-10 to 13-3 in just one season. We all know how that ended, with a “mutual parting of ways” between Harbaugh and the front office. The 49ers entered the 2015 with grand expectations (“We raise Super Bowl banners, not NFCCG banners”) but finished a lackluster season at 5-11 with Jim Tomsula.
And yet instant reaction to Kelly has been less than favorable.
The less-than-favorable reaction stems, in large part, from media-driven narratives that are standard to just about any coach who is fired after a mediocre season and can be summed up in 3 reasons:
- Chip runs a gimmick offense
- his offense puts the defense at a disadvantage
- he’s lost the locker room.
If you’re not familiar with the Kelly offense, you can read more here.
For those familiar, he runs the spread offense, which is really just a new innovative take on old-school football principles as highlighted by the above article.
Indeed, Kelly once noted, via the Eagles website, “I’ve said it since day one: We don’t do anything revolutionary offensively. We run inside zone, we run outside zone, we run a sweep play, we run a power play. We’ve got a five-step [passing] game, we’ve got a three-step game, we run some screens. We’re not doing anything that’s never been done before in football.”
The notion that the offense is gimmicky gains steam among those who don’t know the specifics. But teams all over the NFL have implemented and copied aspects of Kelly’s offense, everything from the Patriots implementing the “no-huddle” (of course with Kelly’s guidance) to teams like Carolina, Green Bay, and Seattle (all still in the playoffs) implementing “packaged plays” that have a run-pass option.
In 2015, the Eagles ranked No. 25 in Football Outsiders’ efficiency metric called “Defense Adjusted Value over Average” or “DVOA” for short (26th in the passing game/17th in the run). But in his first two seasons as head coach, Philadelphia ranked third overall in 2013 (fifth in the pass/first in the run) and 13th overall in 2014 (15th in the pass/13th in the run) in total offensive efficiency, as measured by DVOA.
2014’s drop off can largely be attributed to significant injuries to the quarterback and offensive line.
But what’s being overlooked in his firing is not that he made bold roster moves or that he didn’t get along with players (which we’ll get to in a bit), it’s that his offensive system changed to the detriment of the team due largely to lack of interior offensive line talent after the departure of guards Evan Mathis and Todd Herremans.
What resulted was Kelly’s scheming away from the inside zone running game (where Murray excels, and what 49ers RB Carlos Hyde is good at) in favor of a running game and pass-heavy offense seeking to exploit quarterback Sam Bradford’s arm.
Incidentally, the Eagles led the league in dropped passes with 35 and dropped pass rate at 5.6 percent. Contrast that with Pro Football Focus’ measure, which put the Eagles at 42 drops and at 7.9 percent drop rate.
Either way, very poor player execution.
The second myth is that his offense puts his defense at a disadvantage and therefore would not be worth the risk due to injuries.
Again, this is a narrative that’s driven by a media and fans concerned with box scores above all else.
Using Football Outsiders DVOA, Philadelphia was 15th overall (25th against the pass, 11th against the run), in 2014 they were 10th (18th against the pass, 7th against the run), and in 2015, they were 26th (14th against the pass/28th against the run).
2015 was a wild year for Philadelphia. Due to personnel moves (arguably the one valid concern about Kelly), the Eagles suffered to a 6-9 record before firing him. They possessed a defense that could not stay off the field due to a lack of offensive production, which would kill any team. Despite this, they are only 5-7 plays above the league average in defensive plays over a three-year period.
And if the up-tempo offense was really a detriment to the defense in terms of injuries, due to playing more snaps, what we’d see is a team that couldn’t stay healthy.
But using a metric called “Adjusted Games Lost,” the Eagles in 2013 and 2014 have been one of the healthiest teams in the league and have avoided the amount of injuries one thinks is associated with this style of play.
A further breakdown of 2014 by defensive unit can be found here, and 2015 data is not yet available.
The third and final narrative revolves around the idea Kelly lost the locker room. This is the same tired narrative we hear when great coaches are fired. We heard the same thing about Harbaugh during the 2014 season, and we still hear it today from certain players like Anthony Davis.
The Eagles also reportedly quit on Andy Reid, and it not unlike anything we’ve heard about the Giants quitting annually on Tom Coughlin.
It usually stems from sports journalists who are too lazy to actually analyze the games that are being played and instead choose to focus their TMZ-like fascination on a few select sources who will say anything to justify the narrative.
You can question the personnel decisions (which I think was less of a factor due to the fact that they needed cap space and that wide receiver DeSean Jackson is a selfish player*) or the fact that he abandoned his playbook, and those would have some merit.
But for now it’s best to look at this as new start with a new team.
Whatever your perceptions of Kelly are, I hope this clears up a few things or, at least, puts his time with the Eagles in perspective.
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I don’t hate the hire, I love it, but it does not mean hiring him translates to Super Bowl wins or long-term success. But I think it’s best to reserve judgment until games are actually played.
He has one shot to make it work and he wants to be in the NFL. I think he’s learned his lesson and I think we should all give him a chance to prove otherwise. If you have questions and would like to discuss further, please find me on Twitter @rjmadrid.
Stay faithful. And GO NINERS!
Next: Challenging the Myths Surrounding 49ers Head Coach Chip Kelly
All statistics, records and accolades courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com.
Richard Madrid is a special contributor to Niner Noise. Follow him @rjmadrid on Twitter.
Want to contribute and get involved with Niner Noise? Follow and interact with us on Twitter as well. You can find us @SFNinerNoise.