Eagles head coach Chip Kelly answers questions about his quarterback. Photo by Jeff Berkes/contrastphotography.com

Head Coach Chip Kelly Press Conference
10.9.13

Q. How much work was Michael Vick able to get yesterday and today?
CHIP KELLY: He got individual work yesterday. Threw the ball around a little bit. Did not get any team or seven‑on‑seven reps, and we’ll see how he feels as we get going in practice today.

Q. Does he feel well? Is he going to be able to go seven‑on‑seven today?
CHIP KELLY: I don’t know. That’s what I just said. If he does feel ‑‑ if he feels well. We’ll see how he is, and we’ll adjust accordingly to see where he is. A lot of that is feedback we get from Mike.

Q. You talked in the past about talking to the quarterbacks about what they like to run, what they’re comfortable with. How different is that with Nick Foles from what Mike likes to run?
CHIP KELLY: It’s not much different in terms of what we’re throwing and how we approach the whole thing. So they may like one individual route like how the tight end breaks on this compared to that. But it’s not that much different between all three of them to be honest with you.

Q. Spoke to Pat Shurmur yesterday, and he said the staff watched Foles’ game last year against the Bucs. What did you get from watching that film?

CHIP KELLY: Same thing we get from everybody. We played the Redskins, we watched both games that the Redskins played against the Eagles last year to see Coach [Jim] Haslett. If the defensive coordinator is the same, we go back to last years. We watched the Bucs because the coordinator is the same. We watched the Giants game because Perry [Fewell] is the same. We didn’t do it when we played the Chiefs because Bob Sutton wasn’t there [last year]. We won’t do it with the Cowboys because Monte Kiffin is new. We’re watching everything they do. How similar are they from one year to the other year?

Q. So Foles’ performance last year against them —
CHIP KELLY: I’m not looking at that. I’m watching the Tampa Bay defense. So how did Tampa Bay change from one year to the next. How similar are their calls? How much do they pressure in 2012 compared to 2013? Is that similar? Have the coverages changed? Have there been additions from this year compared to last year? So if we’re watching it, we think Nick did a nice job. They won the game. They threw a nice sprint out to [Jeremy] Maclin to win the thing. Nick kept a lot of drives alive with his feet in that game. But really when we’re watching those games, we’re watching the defense really specifically, and that’s what we’re breaking down.

Q. What do you think of their defensive scheme?
CHIP KELLY: I think they’re a match team. So it’s what people are doing against them. It seems they want to be in the match‑ups. So if you’re in 10 or 11 personnel, you’re going to get more DBs on the field. If you’re in 21 or 12 personnel, you’re going to get more linebackers on the field.

Q. Are they a better defense than they were last year?
CHIP KELLY: Yeah, I think statistically it would tell you that. Then the additions of ‑‑ they’ve got [Darrelle] Revis which they didn’t have last year. They didn’t have [Dashon] Goldson last year. So the personnel is upgraded, I would say. But I thought they were a good defense last year. [Gerald] McCoy is a guy that jumps out at you on tape. Lavonte David jumps out on tape. You add Goldson and you add Revis, I think they were better than they were last year.

Q. Have you seen a better cornerback than Revis?
CHIP KELLY: He’s right up there in that discussion as one of the best to ever play the game. He’s a huge challenge for us and it will be interesting to see how they deploy him this week.

Q. Was Patrick Chung limited again at practice yesterday?
CHIP KELLY: He was limited. He went through more in practice yesterday than he did the week before. Him and Mike are the two guys we have to keep an eye on this week.

Q. DeSean Jackson said he doesn’t think Revis can run with him —
CHIP KELLY: That’s not exactly what he said. He said a bunch of things. Sometimes it’s good if you put the rest of it out there, because he said it was a great match‑up. He’s got all the respect in the world for him. And the question is he thinks he’s faster than him. We’re not having a track meet on Sunday, so it’s not about who is faster than who. It’s about who can perform better. I think it will be an interesting match‑up to watch.

Q. The rest of the question was how much do you expect him to be following DeSean all game?
CHIP KELLY: I don’t know. That’s what we’ll see when we play the game.

Q. When you play a game where the defense likes to match personnel, is that potentially a situation where you can have an advantage because you don’t necessarily substitute everybody?
CHIP KELLY: Sometimes tempo will help it in those situations. It just depends on how they do it. I think with our guys we move them around. It’s formations that help you and things like that. The guys are not always the left outside receiver. They’re not always in the slot, they can move them around. I think that’s the fun part of coaching is what did you see on film and what did you anticipate them doing to you, and how does it express itself as the game goes along.

Q. A team that likes to match against personnel as opposed to a team that just throws guys out there and not do as much, does that potentially give you an advantage?

CHIP KELLY: It depends on if you win the match‑up, yeah. It gives you an advantage. If you don’t win the match‑up, it doesn’t give you an advantage. But so far to date everybody’s matched. So it’s not like there aren’t people ‑‑ we haven’t played anybody so far that says, hey, we’re going to play. I think everybody’s going to ‑‑ it’s kind of a match‑up league, and everybody’s trying to put their players in positions to make plays.

Q. Tampa’s defense is very good against the run. What are some proponents of their defense?

CHIP KELLY: I think their overall team speed is outstanding. They can run at every level. They run well on the defensive line. You’re facing a D‑line that’s different than last week.
Last week’s defensive line some real big, big bodies inside that are extremely tough to move. It’s a different animal this week. Gerald McCoy may be the best defensive player in the league. He’s explosive, dynamic, he can run. They’ve got athletic ability on the defensive line, and they’re not as big as some of the teams we’ve played, but they’re faster than teams we’ve played. They run well at the linebacker spot, all of those linebackers, [Mason] Foster, David, they run, they can really, really run. So I think one of the things they do is you may increase a gap because you’re a little bit ‑‑ they’re not as big as some teams, but that gap is closed pretty quickly because of how well they run as a group.

Q. That is something that the Giants do with Mike Patterson and Shaun Rogers. Is that easily correctable to get the running game back?
CHIP KELLY: Yeah, just depends on how we’re calling it. A lot of it depends on the play call and rezoning things and it’s a back and forth.

Q. Can you still run the zone-read play by giving Jason Kelce more help?
CHIP KELLY: Yeah, we have adjustments in what we can do.

Q. Why do you think they were able to have more success against that one play?
CHIP KELLY: The two times that they beat us?

Q. Kelce said it was a bunch of times with Mike Patterson and Shaun Rogers?
CHIP KELLY: Yeah, there were two times they caught us for tackles for loss, because we were manning that look instead of zoning that look, so…

Q. Patrick Chung’s injury was described as unique by Billy Davis yesterday. What’s he have going on?
CHIP KELLY: He’s got a shoulder. That’s unique. I don’t get into the specific injuries. He hurt his shoulder. They just tell me how long he’s out for, and we’re hopeful we’re going to get him back.

Q. Jeff Maehl has seen an increase in offensive snaps, Pat Shurmur said yesterday. If that happens, who is he taking snaps away from?
CHIP KELLY: They come away from all of them. It just depends on where we’re using them and how much Jeff continues to grasp what we’re doing. The thing about Jeff is there is versatility for him, and he’s not just an outside receiver. He’s an outside receiver, an inside receiver, and a good special teams player. That’s why we picked him up.

Q. What were your thoughts when you were offered the head coaching job in Tampa Bay?
CHIP KELLY: Last year, I was not offered the job.

Q. Last season?
CHIP KELLY: The year before? Two years ago? So two years ago.

Q. Well, it’s 2013. It was 2012?
CHIP KELLY: I only go by seasons. My life doesn’t go by years; it goes by seasons. I didn’t want to leave the staff at Oregon at that time and I didn’t want to leave the players at Oregon at that time.

Q. You went down there and interviewed. I guess you were down there to talk to the ownership, can you talk about that?
CHIP KELLY: Yeah, I wasn’t down there. They met me while I was on the road recruiting. I was impressed with the three Glazer brothers and impressed with [general manager] Marc Dominik. But it was more a decision to stay at Oregon than it was to go anywhere in the NFL.

Q. Knowing when you turned it down that you had NFL as aspirations?
CHIP KELLY: I didn’t have NFL aspirations.

Q. You didn’t?
CHIP KELLY: No, they contacted me and I said I would go to an interview as long as it didn’t affect my recruiting. It was the first time I was contacted by a team. I said as long as it doesn’t affect where I am, and they were gracious enough to work it into the schedule where it didn’t affect the recruiting schedule and I listened. That’s what happened.

Q. How tough a decision was that back then?
CHIP KELLY: I don’t look at decisions as tough. I don’t look at decisions as difficult. You get all the information necessary and you make the decision and move forward. We had an outstanding year staying at Oregon, and those memories we had there, those players that I get an opportunity to coach, that staff I was with, I love those guys and still love those guys. I think it was a good decision for me at that point in time.

Q. Bill Davis said yesterday the Giants got some of the slants. He said he’s comfortable in third situations allowing his defense to allow those as long as they make a tackle. Is that a match‑up thing or something you see going forward that this defense is going to be playing that type of umbrella zone?
CHIP KELLY: No, I think that the answer is you can’t defend everything. You’re going to pick your poison. You can say, hey, we’re going to play press man, get up in everybody’s face and force the ball up over the top. When you have three balls thrown over your head for touchdowns, you go why the heck are we pressing these people? So you can’t defend it all. You have to make decisions on what at that point in time do you want to do. If you’re going to let the ball be thrown in front of you, they may move the ball incrementally down the field, but they’re not getting the ball in the end zone.
As a whole, our defense has done a really good job of not getting the ball thrown over their head. We had one we gave up on in the Giants game. We had two guys there, and we gave up one in the Broncos game. But beside that I think our guys are doing a good job. I know a lot of the explosive plays in the past, all of a sudden, balls are going over people’s heads and that’s a quick way to score. So those are conscious decisions by us as a coaching staff. We want to be deep to short in our zones, keep the ball in front of us and rally up and make tackles.

Q. Jason Avant said, I think yesterday he doesn’t know why people throw deep all the time. You see all the long plays.
CHIP KELLY: What position does he play?

Q. He’s a wide receiver.
CHIP KELLY: He’s a wide receiver. You can look at it statistically. Is it easier to complete a five‑yard pass or 45-yard pass? We’ve had a lot of people take some shots at us. [Bradley] Fletcher broke up three the other day. So what are they? 25%? It becomes a percentage game. It’s not as easy as saying, hey, we can drop back and throw it 50 times a game deep. But if you’re only going to complete one or two of them, you’re probably going to be out of the game.

Q. How many five-yard passes does it take to get that one 50‑yard play?
CHIP KELLY: How many five‑yard passes does it take to get a first down, too? Right? I mean, you’ve got to move the ball up and down the field. You’ve got to try to stay on the field. You throw three incomplete passes, you’re three‑and‑out, sitting on the sideline, and you don’t get an opportunity to throw it that way.

Q. Can you tell me a little bit about LeSean McCoy this year, and the contributions to the whole team on offense?
CHIP KELLY: LeSean, what was the first part of it?

Q. How his performance this year?
CHIP KELLY: Yeah, I think LeSean has done a great job. He’s one of the top backs in this league. He’s really a threat to score every time he touches the football. We starting to use him more in the passing game. Lot of times you get more man coverage. Some of the favorable match‑ups are using the running backs coming out of the back field. LeSean has done a great job with that. He’s improved as a blocker. He did a great job on Sunday against the Giants in picking up some blitzes and really making himself an every down back. I think the ability to affect people in the passing game and in the running game is what makes him such a special player.

Q. You talk about giving up those types of short passes, et cetera. You saw the Dallas-Denver game?
CHIP KELLY: I didn’t see the Dallas-Denver game.

Q. You heard about it?
CHIP KELLY: Yeah, they scored a lot of points. I mean, we were on a bus. I’m not being facetious, but we were driving back from New York. We had a game ourselves that day.

Q. We saw it in the press box?
CHIP KELLY: We weren’t in the press box.

Q. Getting back to it, is defense dead in this league, if you look at the numbers ‑‑
CHIP KELLY: No, that question’s dead though. I’ve got practice.

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