BOCA RATON, Fla. -- The table, which began filling up with media around 6:30 this morning, nearly an hour before Chip Kelly was to speak, really should have been square and not circular. This was to be the stage for a verbal brawl of sorts between Kelly and the media he thought he had escaped after his late-season firing by the Eagles, and the participants did not disappoint.Kelly's hour-long se sion, as part of the NFC's coaches breakfast with the pre s during the final day of the NFL's annual spring meeting at the swanky Boca Resort, was difficult to score. Both sides largely jabbed, exchanged some body blows, but few haymakers landed. And Kelly's biggest shots -- slightly veiled and otherwise -- were generally directed at Eagles top football executive Howie Roseman, with whom he clearly neither likes nor respects, and whom he believes is most responsible for the reason he was to sed from Philadelphia before he could even complete his third year on the job (according to numerous sources).Of course, Kelly would not come out and say that, but he did engage in some of the minutia that has continued to light up the sports talk call-in lines in Philly since his departure. How exactly Kelly did or didn't demand full control over all football operations? Who is responsible for all those bad contracts? Kelly did his best to avoid or obscure much of the blame. He was never going to get too introspective, Blessuan Austin Jersey he was never going to reveal his thoughts about being labeled as lacking "emotional intelligence," by Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and he wasn't going to di sect any of his mi steps along the way or opine on how he might not become a better coach in San Francisco, either.Kelly's meeting with the media felt more like one of those surreal Republican nominee debates than it did your normal breezy give-and-take between coaches and ink-stained wretches at one of these events, with each side parsing its words ever so carefully and seeking ways to sneak in a shot that might provoke the opposite side into conceding something the other hoped to conceal. It took only until the second question of the se sion before the Philly media commandeered Kelly, asking what he gleaned from the "autopsy" of his Eagles stint he said he would perform during his introductory pre s conference in San Francisco. And Kelly's response set the stage for the hour that would follow: "We didn't win enough games," a refrain he would utter several times.As for what we did learn -- Kelly has talked to disgruntled quarterback a few times on a very surface level and basically acknowledges a trade could still be po sible. "If he's there on the fourth (of April, when offseason work begins), we'd be excited."And Gabe Jackson Jersey of course, Kelly is fired up to get on the field with his new players and yadda, yadda yadda. As for any bombshells, well, things got interesting about a half hour in when Kelly did entertain some inquiries into the bizarre rules of engagement between him and Roseman that served as a portal into just how dysfunctional things were between Kelly's guys in the building, and anyone with a perceived allegiance to Roseman. Kelly admitted what was widely reported after he initially spurned the Eagles' first offer of their head coaching job back in 2013, that he had major concerns with the team's personnel department. "We knew going in" that was going to be an i sue, Kelly said, and personnel exec Tom Gamble -- who would be fired in 2015 -- was his guy. Kelly claims that while he wanted the team to hire a new general manager when Gamble was dismi sed, following the 2014 season, he did not demand full control of the operation.So, to hear Kelly tell it, while "I didn't like the way it was," and "I didn't like the direction" of the front office, and "I didn't think we were on the same page," he did not ask for more power. Lurie, in Kelly's telling of the decline of the , simply opted to bestow it upon him. And, while Lurie has said Kelly had e sentially carte blanche to do anything he chose (other than have Roseman to sed out of the building following the 2014 season), the coach couches things quite differently. He simply had power over the 90-man roster, but had no voice in contract negotiations of any sort."It's just the way it was set up," as Kelly put it, sounding like a helple s cog in the Eagles machine. So, who set it up that way? "The organization." Alrighty then. As to how things played out between him and Roseman during the doomed 2015 campaign, which was highlighted by a failed trade of for and botched signings of and (all players whom Roseman quickly dispatched as soon as he regained control of the roster), well it went about as expected. Kelly used Ed Marynowitz, his former vice president of personnel (who was fired with Kelly), as a Russell Wilson Jersey go between, which eliminated the need for him to interact with Roseman at all."It was just a weird situation," Kelly admitted, remaining detached and explaining events as if they were perpetrated upon him and not that he played any defining role in. As for Roseman, "I didn't really see him," because Kelly was preparing for games and Howie wasn't really welcomed at practice, so, yeah. Kelly simply decided which players he wanted in the offseason and would have Marynowitz relay the me sage, and then he claims he was out of the loop. So don't waste your time asking Kelly about Travis Homer Jersey all the silly guaranteed money doled out to Maxwell and Murray. To hear him tell it, he barely had any idea what was going on."I've never negotiated a contract in my life," he said. Kelly, a football savant and brilliant thinker who could clearly get a handle on the league's rudimentary salary cap quite quickly, remained detached, he says. "That's not my skill set. I didn't study the salary cap." Kelly says he "wasn't in charge" of determining the length, guaranteed money and structure of any contracts and would have you believe he didn't even know how any of that got sorted out and why Lurie's money went where it did. "We never came up with any parameters," he said; "we" in this case seemingly consisting of him and his trusty a sistant, Marynowitz. He chalked Alonso's lost season up to injuries and he still raves about Murray -- a running back that Kelly the coach barely used ("helluva football player"). Maxwell could still be a top, physical cover corner. Because, what Kelly can do, besides coach, "I can evaluate players." (Also, his problems with the Eagles locker room were largely overblown, after his firing he got calls from "almost every guy on the team," and it was just a "vocal minority," who expre sed their i sues with him publically.)Got it.And to get a clearer grasp on what Kelly believes Roseman could or could not do, well just listen to him gush about 49ers general manager Trent Baalke and all of the "trust" he has with this front office. Kelly has no reason to require more power here, because Gamble and Baalke have his back. "I think our personnel department is outstanding," Kelly raved, noting Baalke's "proven track record."Of course, the 49ers plummeted to 5-11 in their first season without Jim Harbaugh around (firing Jim Tomsula after just one season with a roster devoid Brandon Shell Jersey of talent), and the organization was something of a laughing stock before Harbaugh arrived. Kelly's regime begins under a cloud from the me sy fight between former franchise quarterback Kaepernick and ownership, and one could make the case the marriage with Kelly is one of convenience -- this wasn't a coveted job and he wasn't getting asked to interview elsewhere -- but yeah, otherwise perfectly stable situation. I figured the original over/under on how long Kelly lasted in Philadelphia would be three years. I'm thinking more like two years this time around. Tougher division. More holes on the roster. Le s proven ownership.And while Kelly did not even entertain returning to the college ranks this time around, preferring the NFL where it's "the best of the best every week," the reality is he will always have a safe haven on any number of campuses, and a coterie of boosters looking to woo him back to the NCAA. He'll be fine no matter what, and he is a helluva football coach, but now four years out from his tenure conquering the Pac-12 at Oregon you can't help but still have questions about his integration into the pro game, and how long he will truly be for the NFL.
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