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Chip Kelly gets pragmatic about the draft
Posted by Mike Florio on May 9, 2014
AP
I don’t know Eagles coach Chip Kelly very well, but I like him. I like him in part because he’s willing to explain things for what they are, not for what anyone wants us to think them to be.
When it comes to the draft, Kelly has pulled back the curtain on the notion, as perpetrated by the media draft machine, that there’s some sort of code that magically can be cracked. There’s not; it’s all a crapshoot and anyone who tries to tell the audience otherwise is dumb or lying.
“You don’t know how it’s going to pan out,” Kelly said Friday when discussing his team’s first-round pick, linebacker Marcus Smith, via CSNPhilly.com. “Just going through the analytics of it, 50 percent of first-round picks don’t make it. That’s through the history of time.”
With all due respect to the efforts of draft experts (real or self-titled) to make the process into something that can be figured out, Kelly realizes that the process is inherently impossible to solve.
“When you draft someone in the sixth round and you say, ‘Hey, we got a steal,’ my first question is, why didn’t you take him in the fifth, then?” Kelly said. “If you’re so smart and you knew what you knew and you knew everything about the draft and you knew the guy was going to be an All-Pro — the people who brag about, ‘We got a sixth-round pick and he became an All-Pro player’ — then the first question is, well why didn’t you draft him earlier if you were so smart? A lot of times you don’t know.”
That logic can be used against plenty of teams, including the Eagles themselves. Last year, when quarterback Nick Foles developed into an unlikely star after being a third-round pick in 2012, G.M. Howie Roseman explained what the Eagles saw at him.
So why didn’t they take him in the first or second round then? If they’re so smart and they knew what they knew and they knew everything about the draft and they knew the guy was going to be an All-Pro, then the first question is, well why didn’t they draft him earlier if they were so smart?
In an industry where people have a clear motivation to make things so much more complicated than they really are, Kelly keeps it simple. It’s refreshing and it’s authentic and it’s honest.
No one knows what a college football player will do in the NFL until he’s in the NFL. And many factors influence the outcome, from the player’s ability to overcome physical and mental adversity to the player’s work ethic to the player’s character to the team’s coaching staff to the team’s resources for developing players to the other players on the team to the systems used.
But if enough people understood that, the draft wouldn’t be viewed as a mountain that fans can climb with the assistance of the Sherpas who are paid to talk incessantly about prospects for five months. And plenty of those guys would have to find work that actually carries with it accountability for being flat-out wrong.
Kelly: '50 percent of 1st-round picks don't make it'
By John Gonzalez
If you’re worried about the Eagles’ first-round pick, if you think they grabbed Marcus Smith too soon, you’re left to deal with your anxiety on your own. Chip Kelly isn’t interested in making you feel better.
On Friday, after the Eagles moved up in the second round to take wide receiver Jordan Matthews, Kelly talked to the media at the NovaCare Complex. After a while, the conversation returned to Smith. Kelly was asked if he was aware of the reaction from some fans and media members who questioned whether the Eagles reached for Smith (see story).
Kelly said Smith has “the intangibles to go with the tangibles,” compared Smith’s 40-yard dash time to first-round pick Khalil Mack, and called Smith a “quality person.” The head coach said everyone should reserve judgment until after Smith actually plays for the Eagles, which was a reasonable request. But Kelly also said something unvarnished that might make Eagles fans a bit nervous.
“You don’t know how it’s going to pan out,” Kelly said. “Just going through the analytics of it, 50 percent of first-round picks don’t make it. That’s through the history of time.”
Go ahead and hyperventilate into the nearest bag. We’ll wait. Because there’s more. When it comes to which rounds certain players should or should not be selected, Kelly essentially said no one really knows.
“When you draft someone in the sixth round and you say ‘hey, we got a steal,’ my first question is, why didn’t you take him in the fifth, then?” Kelly asked rhetorically. “If you’re so smart and you knew what you knew and you knew everything about the draft and you knew the guy was going to be an All-Pro -- the people who brag about ‘we got a sixth-round pick and he became an All-Pro player -- then the first question is, well why didn’t you draft him earlier if you were so smart? A lot of times you don’t know.”
To underscore a point that suddenly made shoelaces and sharp objects dangerous for Eagles fans as a result, Kelly told an anecdote about his first head coaching job in college.
“Our best receiver I ever coached at New Hampshire, we were smart enough to let him walk on at our school,” Kelly said. “It’s the same thing. You offer scholarships to all these guys, you’ve got five-star recruits and everybody is like ‘he’s our guy.’ Then all of a sudden, the first day of practice, you’re like ‘who’s that guy? He’s really good. You did great job letting him be a walk-on.’ I didn’t do anything. You know what I mean? It’s just like when an undrafted free agent comes out of nowhere, where we did a great job going to find him. If we really did a really good job, you would have drafted him.”
Chip Kelly is basically William Goldman. No one knows anything.
Posted by Mike Florio on May 9, 2014
I don’t know Eagles coach Chip Kelly very well, but I like him. I like him in part because he’s willing to explain things for what they are, not for what anyone wants us to think them to be.
When it comes to the draft, Kelly has pulled back the curtain on the notion, as perpetrated by the media draft machine, that there’s some sort of code that magically can be cracked. There’s not; it’s all a crapshoot and anyone who tries to tell the audience otherwise is dumb or lying.
“You don’t know how it’s going to pan out,” Kelly said Friday when discussing his team’s first-round pick, linebacker Marcus Smith, via CSNPhilly.com. “Just going through the analytics of it, 50 percent of first-round picks don’t make it. That’s through the history of time.”
With all due respect to the efforts of draft experts (real or self-titled) to make the process into something that can be figured out, Kelly realizes that the process is inherently impossible to solve.
“When you draft someone in the sixth round and you say, ‘Hey, we got a steal,’ my first question is, why didn’t you take him in the fifth, then?” Kelly said. “If you’re so smart and you knew what you knew and you knew everything about the draft and you knew the guy was going to be an All-Pro — the people who brag about, ‘We got a sixth-round pick and he became an All-Pro player’ — then the first question is, well why didn’t you draft him earlier if you were so smart? A lot of times you don’t know.”
That logic can be used against plenty of teams, including the Eagles themselves. Last year, when quarterback Nick Foles developed into an unlikely star after being a third-round pick in 2012, G.M. Howie Roseman explained what the Eagles saw at him.
So why didn’t they take him in the first or second round then? If they’re so smart and they knew what they knew and they knew everything about the draft and they knew the guy was going to be an All-Pro, then the first question is, well why didn’t they draft him earlier if they were so smart?
In an industry where people have a clear motivation to make things so much more complicated than they really are, Kelly keeps it simple. It’s refreshing and it’s authentic and it’s honest.
No one knows what a college football player will do in the NFL until he’s in the NFL. And many factors influence the outcome, from the player’s ability to overcome physical and mental adversity to the player’s work ethic to the player’s character to the team’s coaching staff to the team’s resources for developing players to the other players on the team to the systems used.
But if enough people understood that, the draft wouldn’t be viewed as a mountain that fans can climb with the assistance of the Sherpas who are paid to talk incessantly about prospects for five months. And plenty of those guys would have to find work that actually carries with it accountability for being flat-out wrong.
Kelly: '50 percent of 1st-round picks don't make it'
By John Gonzalez
If you’re worried about the Eagles’ first-round pick, if you think they grabbed Marcus Smith too soon, you’re left to deal with your anxiety on your own. Chip Kelly isn’t interested in making you feel better.
On Friday, after the Eagles moved up in the second round to take wide receiver Jordan Matthews, Kelly talked to the media at the NovaCare Complex. After a while, the conversation returned to Smith. Kelly was asked if he was aware of the reaction from some fans and media members who questioned whether the Eagles reached for Smith (see story).
Kelly said Smith has “the intangibles to go with the tangibles,” compared Smith’s 40-yard dash time to first-round pick Khalil Mack, and called Smith a “quality person.” The head coach said everyone should reserve judgment until after Smith actually plays for the Eagles, which was a reasonable request. But Kelly also said something unvarnished that might make Eagles fans a bit nervous.
“You don’t know how it’s going to pan out,” Kelly said. “Just going through the analytics of it, 50 percent of first-round picks don’t make it. That’s through the history of time.”
Go ahead and hyperventilate into the nearest bag. We’ll wait. Because there’s more. When it comes to which rounds certain players should or should not be selected, Kelly essentially said no one really knows.
“When you draft someone in the sixth round and you say ‘hey, we got a steal,’ my first question is, why didn’t you take him in the fifth, then?” Kelly asked rhetorically. “If you’re so smart and you knew what you knew and you knew everything about the draft and you knew the guy was going to be an All-Pro -- the people who brag about ‘we got a sixth-round pick and he became an All-Pro player -- then the first question is, well why didn’t you draft him earlier if you were so smart? A lot of times you don’t know.”
To underscore a point that suddenly made shoelaces and sharp objects dangerous for Eagles fans as a result, Kelly told an anecdote about his first head coaching job in college.
“Our best receiver I ever coached at New Hampshire, we were smart enough to let him walk on at our school,” Kelly said. “It’s the same thing. You offer scholarships to all these guys, you’ve got five-star recruits and everybody is like ‘he’s our guy.’ Then all of a sudden, the first day of practice, you’re like ‘who’s that guy? He’s really good. You did great job letting him be a walk-on.’ I didn’t do anything. You know what I mean? It’s just like when an undrafted free agent comes out of nowhere, where we did a great job going to find him. If we really did a really good job, you would have drafted him.”
Chip Kelly is basically William Goldman. No one knows anything.
