Chip Kelly needs a job. And the Tennessee Titans have an opening
There has been so much Chip Kelly speculation this NFL season, and a common theory was that Kelly would end up with the Tennessee Titans, where his old college quarterback Marcus Mariota now plays.
The fit seemed obvious, but there was a problem before Tuesday: Kelly had a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. Even if the Eagles would let Kelly go to Tennessee, it was presumably going to come at an expensive price in a trade. There’s no such cost anymore. Kelly is free, after being fired by the Eagles on Tuesday night.
The Titans fired coach Ken Whisehunt during this season and need a new coach. So there’s no major, obvious obstacle stopping a reunion of Kelly and Mariota in 2016 in Tennessee.
While this all seems like a cozy fit, will the Titans want to go that route? It also would depend on what Kelly wants to do, but he hasn’t said anything that would lessen his chances of landing with the Titans. Jay Glazer of Fox Sports answered two big questions after a conversation with Kelly: Glazer reported that Kelly wants to remain in the NFL, and he does not want personnel control in his next job, he just wants to coach. Both are important revelations. The Titans, or any other NFL team, would surely have had reservations about giving Kelly personnel control, but apparently he doesn’t want it. And Kelly would have been a top candidate for any high-profile vacant college job in the future (and he has the financial cushion to wait for the right job) but that’s all moot if he wants to stay in the NFL.
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Kelly is 26-21 as an NFL head coach, so he has not been a total failure, and the idea of getting a quarterback like Mariota has to be very intriguing to him. It’s easy to imagine Kelly envisioning huge NFL success with Mariota running his system. It’s a second-hand account, but remember that back in April, ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski cited people who had talked to Kelly and said Kelly was convinced Mariota would be an NFL star.
“I’ve talked to a couple or three people who have talked to Chip Kelly,” Jaworski said then, according to CSN Philly, “and Chip Kelly said Marcus Mariota will win multiple Super Bowls in the National Football League.
“Let me say it again: Will win multiple Super Bowls.”
Mariota won a Heisman Trophy at Oregon, running basically the same offense Kelly ran there, even after he left to the NFL. There were many rumors before last year’s draft that Kelly wanted to make a huge trade to acquire the second pick and grab Mariota to run his offense. The Titans smartly stayed put and took Mariota, because Mariota had an excellent rookie season and looks like a legitimate franchise quarterback. He has a shot at the NFL offensive rookie of the year award.
This seems to be too perfect. The Kelly-Mariota reunion was talked about all offseason, but it wasn’t possible in Philadelphia. Now that the Eagles have let Kelly go, he’s free to coach the quarterback who ran his offense to near perfection in college. That is, if the Titans want to go in that direction.
The Titans hiring Kelly this offseason seems too obvious. Rarely do such things work out so easily. But wouldn’t it be fun if it did?
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
