The Philadelphia Eagles managed 77 plays and 33 points in their Monday night dismantling of Robert Griffin III and the Washington Redskins. But rookie coach Chip Kelly insists his team didn't push the gas quite enough for his liking.
"No I feel like it was slow to be honest with you," Kelly told Phillymaf.com of the first NFL offense he has officially been in charge of running. "I'm not joking. We need to do a better job. We left the ball on the ground too much, we didn't get the ball to the officials. We could have sped things up from a process in between plays, and that's something that we need to continue to work on."
It's hard to imagine the Birds, or any other team for that matter, moving much faster than they did in the first half when they fired off 53 offensive plays, well ahead of the pace needed to shatter the record for most snaps by one team of 95.
"We've got to practice it a little more," Kelly told Phillymag.com. "We do a lot of things at such a rapid tempo. I think our guys understand tempo and do that pretty good but we also have to learn how to practice playing it the other way. Really from a mindset standpoint, we do everything 90 miles an hour, then you've got to go back driving through the city streets, you can't drive 90 miles an hour anymore, you've got to kind of slow it down and make sure you can still negotiate the turn."
On the night, the Eagles finished with 77 plays, considerably slowing things down after halftime when the Redskins chopped a 26-7 deficit to the final score of 33-27.
"I don't know, and it would be very presumptuous of me to talk about the shape of other teams because I have never watched them train," Kelly said when asked if he's convinced his Eagles players are in as good of shape as any team they'll face this season. "But I know our team is in shape and I know how we train and we're pretty specific in how we do that," said Kelly. "I believe we can keep up what we are doing right now just because we have been doing this since April. I think if you're going to wait for the week before you play us to say, 'Hey, we've got to get some extra sprinting in' then I think it's too late."
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