Thread: Chip Kelly may be finding a home

Originally Posted by Rakk

I heard that alluded to earlier on the Score, but don't know the specifics. Have you seen anything on this, because I think this is a possibility.

There's been rumors of recruiting violations floating around

Like Houston , I had Kelley high on my list. I'm a little surprised he is not visiting HH. I would also be very hesitant as a college HC to take on a disaster like Cleveland (much less be willing to live there). If I were to make such a transition, I would be more inclined to go with a franchise that is in much better shape. Frankly, I think Kelley's approach is ready for the NFL, but it is likely to fail in Cleveland simply because everything fails in Cleveland.

The guy must have a HHHUUUUGGGEEE ego to think he can make such a big transition and be successful in such a depressed city and organization.

At Oregon, and this is stating the obvious perhaps, they run the spread option, particularly the zone read. Most schools in the Big Ten are already using this style of offense: Illinois, Nebraska, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota to a small degree though they run a lot of two and three back backfields offensively. Most notably, my Ohio State Buckeyes run the spread option under head coach Urban Meyer, who was one of the coaches who first used this style of offense to any degree of success. In the Pac 12, UCLA runs the spread, as does Arizona and Oregon State. In the SEC, Mississippi State and Texas A&M run the spread, and so will my alma mater Tennessee Volunteers under new head coach Butch Jones when he changes things up for the offense.

We are already seeing some variations on the spread option in the NFL starting with last season with the Tim Tebow experiment in Denver and Cam Newton at Carolina. This year, Seattle with Russell Wilson, Washington with Robert Griffin III, and San Francisco with Colin Kaepernick all run the spread to varying degrees. Chip Kelly will not be any real offensive pioneer in the pros with this style of offense if he gets hired away from Oregon by the Browns or anyone else.

My main concern with this offense in the pros is that you have to have one physically tough son of a gun at quarterback who can take a lick running the option. We all know what it was like in the 1970s when the Bears and Jets tried to run the triple optioni out of the veer or I-formation: it didn't work because defenders in the NFL are too fast for most lateral offensive plays. I know that the Bears experimented with the option in the late sixties/early seventies with Bobby Douglass, and even though he rushed for a then-record 968 yards by a quarterback in 1972, the Bears offense never scored prolifically like a lot of college football triple option teams out of the wishbone, the veer, the I-formation, or the power-I back then, and it's because defenses like Dallas, Pittsburgh, Oakland, Minnesota, and Miami simply had too many fast defenders to be fooled by an option to the fullback up the middle, or a quarterback option, or an option in which the quarterback pitched the ball to the running back. Quarterbacks also would get killed in the running those plays regularly. It's no wonder that the careers of such notable NFL coaches who attempted to run the triple option like Jim Dooley, Abe Gibron, and Lou Holtz didn't last too long in the league as head coaches. Those offenses were perfect in college whereby speed by opposing defenses wasn't as big of a concern as it was, and is still today, in the NFL.

We have already seen Robert Griffin III go down with an injury this year on a couple of occasions because he took nasty hits while running the quarterback option on the zone read. He's suffered a concussion on one occasion and nearly got his knee(s) destroy on another tackle. His backup, Kirk Cousins, has seen significant playing time this year because of those nearly-serious injuries. Do you really want a coach who advocates running an offense in which the quarterback is basically a high-speed bird that unfortunately runs head first into the windshield of a car and therefore gets killed? That would be what the Bears would get if they hired Chip Kelly.

You do see elements of the option. In Washington, RG3 uses a pistol option, he puts DE's in dilemmas and slides down taking much less abuse than regular option styles. In selective doses it can be a viable formation. In some jumbo formations in the red zone you can almost see a wishbone or wishbone wide attack on the horizon. Even though formations like the power T, Maryland, and the power I won't work as a everyday strategy, in select goal line or red zone situations they exploit the speed and lateral motion defenses may not be able to match up with.

That and I miss the power running days lol. I just wish we had some goalline punch.

Originally Posted by bearsinhouston

Chip Kelly looks like he may be going to the Browns.

Actually that's pretty good. Means one less team interested in McCoy or Sullivan.