— Here's what blew away the Philadelphia Eagles' three-man search committee about Chip Kelly, the man it wanted all along to be its new head coach:
"The most impressive thing about Chip would be probably all the same questions everyone else would have," said general manager Howie Roseman, whose persistence after Kelly originally decided to stay at the University of Oregon paid off on Wednesday. "That's: Is his offense going to translate in the NFL? But you realize very quickly after meeting with Chip that it's not about whether his offense is going to translate, it's about his vision for a program, it's about how he sees the entire aspect of a football organization.
"[Owner] Jeffrey [Lurie said] in that first press conference [to announce the head-coaching job was open] that `I want a CEO, I want a leader, I want a presence.' And so if you had any doubt about Chip Kelly's offense, you left saying, `This isn't about Chip Kelly and the spread. This is about how Chip Kelly approaches football.' And that's what was incredibly, incredibly impressive."
Roseman, speaking to reporters at the NovaCare Complex moments after attending Thursday's news conference to introduce Kelly as the new head coach, also was part of the search committee, and came away just as impressed as Lurie and team president Don Smolenski.
The Eagles felt they didn't just hire a coach, but a personality, a leader and the perfect candidate to take them where they need to go.
If not for Roseman continuing to hound Kelly long after Kelly announced he would be staying at Oregon, the Eagles likely would have introduced former Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Gus Bradley on Thursday instead.
Bradley spent most of Tuesday meeting with the Eagles, then left Wednesday morning for Jacksonville, after Lurie woke up and finally made the decision to hire Kelly following secret conversations he and Roseman had with Kelly the night and days before.
Kelly apparently had wanted to join the Eagles ever since finishing a nearly nine-hour interview with them two days after Oregon's Fiesta Bowl victory over Kansas State on Jan. 3.
But he didn't want to leave Oregon right away.
"To me," Kelly said, "it was about how do I handle the people back at the University of Oregon? And as I go through this process and if I'm going to leave, what is the scenario that my players hear it from me and not from somebody else?
"I think people used to say that we live in the information age, and maybe we live in the information overload age. There is a very human side to the game of football, and that's what attracts me to it. It's more of me making a human decision of looking my players in eye, and that I'd be the first to tell them how much they meant to me and the reason I got this job is because of them."
Relationships.
Those are what drive Kelly. That's not just him saying it, either. It's pretty much everyone he's ever worked with in football, the sport he's been dedicated to since taking an entry level job as an assistant freshman coach at Columbia University in 1990.
"I probably took a long time with this decision and probably a lot longer than some other people probably wanted me to take," he said, "but I think for me, I've always coached and I've always been involved in this game because of the people. I knew what this place was all about, and it's where I wanted to be. But I love my players.
"We had a great culture at Oregon, have an unbelievable coaching staff that has been together since I took over as a head coach, and it was really knowns versus unknowns. For me, it was just very, very difficult to say goodbye to a bunch of men that I truly love and respect. The way our players handled it when I talked to them the other day was nothing short of amazing to me. I probably cried more than they did, but they just wanted the best for me just [like] I wanted for them."
Kelly lives for challenges, and the biggest of his career looms, following two seasons in which the Eagles won a total of 12 games. That's what he had grown accustomed to winning in one season at Oregon, where he went 46-7 in four years as head coach and mastermind of a spread-option offense that turned college football upside down.
His high-powered, no-huddle attack averaged 49.6 points per game last season.
He accomplished all this without the typical ego that often comes with being the czar of a college program.
"I think he relates to players very well," said Eagles linebacker Casey Matthews, who played for Kelly at Oregon. "He's a motivator. I enjoyed playing for him. He was a players' coach, he could relate to you, he was always up-tempo, we'd listen to music at practice, stuff like that. He's a fun person to play for."
Matthews, however, was unsure if Kelly's system would work at the NFL level.
"As a base, I have no idea," he said. "It worked in college. You might have a form of it [in the NFL]."
Kelly has no doubt about being able to take what he does, which includes playing and practicing at a frantic pace never before seen in the NFL, and win with the Eagles.
Again, it's because of the way he will relate to players and coaches.
"I don't know of anyone who doesn't want to win," he said. "I mean, I don't know if there's anyone who says, 'Coach, I don't want to score points.' I haven't encountered people like that, and I don't think there are people like that.
"Teams that are successful want to win, and if you can give them an advantage in how to win, I think they'd be nuts if they didn't buy into it."
Kelly's style also is not to meddle. He lets his assistant coaches coach, the result of trust.
Which comes back to relationships.
"On game day, those guys have to be able to not worry about who is second-guessing them and who is over their shoulder," Kelly said. "If I do have to second-guess them and I do have to look over their shoulder, then I hired the wrong person."
Kelly has just begun his relationship with Eagles fans.
Seems he's off to a good start, saying all the right things.
All he has to do now is win.
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