Chip Kelly To Tennessee Titans Trade Rumors Heat Up
By Erik Lambert
Oct 4, 2015; Landover, MD, USA; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly (R) gestures on the sidelines against the Washington Redskins at FedEx Field. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Anybody with a decent memory and a love of football knows what happened in the NFL draft this past April. Desperate for a quarterback, the Philadelphia Eagles were expected to make a hard push to move up the board high enough in order to take Oregon star Marcus Mariota. The reasoning was obvious enough. Eagles head coach Chip Kelly was the man who recruited Mariota back in college before heading to the NFL.
The quarterback is the ideal fit for the fast-paced, no-huddle attack Kelly wants to run. It’s the same one that Mariota won the Heisman with, so their reunion would make a ton of sense. Problem is the Eagles just couldn’t get high enough, so instead they settled for a deal to bring in Sam Bradford. The Tennessee Titans made Mariota the #2 overall pick.
Now things have changed. Titans head coach Ken Whisenhunt was fired after a 1-6 start to the season, leaving a vacancy open that could entice the first coaching trade in 13 years.
It makes sense in a lot of ways. Many in Philadelphia have grown tired of Kelly’s ceaseless tinkering with the Eagles roster that seems to have done more harm than good. He might be very open to the idea of being traded to Tennessee where he could reunite with Mariota and run the offense he’d always intended.
In return the Eagles could build on their already sizeable draft coffers and hopefully find a head coach who doesn’t mix and match players as if they’re puzzle pieces and cuts/trades them if they happen to have outspoken opinions.
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Regardless, the likelihood of this happening are minimal, at least in the middle of a season. Philadelphia still has a chance to make the playoffs and torpedo that if they deal Kelly. Now when the off-season comes around this winter, this is something that is almost certain to be revisited.