2014 Record: 10-6, 2^nd in NFC East

Current +/- wins per Bovada: 9.5

Overall

The Eagles are coming off two straight 10-win seasons. Normally that’s a proud accomplishment, but the success rings hollow. A quick exit from the playoffs in 2013 stung, but is nothing like missing the postseason altogether.

Majordomo head coach Chip Kelly clearly wasn’t pleased, and he overhauled many significant portions of the roster. These Eagles will have a new quarterback, running back, top wideout, guard tandem, sack leader and a radically overhauled secondary. The influx of talent doesn’t seem to equal the outflow, not on paper anyway. Yet this could be a tighter, more functional team.

It’s one of the most unpredictable units in recent times. There is potential for greatness, especially if the strong pass rush and explosive plays on offense persist. There is also potential for disaster, with so many moving pieces and parts being asked to fill such sizeable shoes.

Five Questions

1. Didn’t you used to play here?

Chances are if you have heard of an Eagles' offensive player in the last couple of years, they’re not in Philadelphia anymore. While there is roster churn everywhere, few have willingly parted ways with significant, successful talents like these Eagles have done.

- Starting quarterback Nick Foles. He’s been a divisive figure, as many saw his tremendous success in 2013 as a product of Chip Kelly’s system more than inherent greatness on his own part. Foles led the league in QB Rating, yards per attempt, TD percentage and sported a 27-2 TD/INT ratio in just 13 games in 2013, but he came back to earth in ’14. Durability issues helped make the decision here, though as you’ll soon find this argument holds less water than a bucket with no sides. Dealt to St. Louis for Sam Bradford and change.

- Pro Bowl running back LeSean McCoy. Shady rushed for almost 3,000 yards and nearly 5 yards per carry in the last two seasons. He’s also one of the better receivers out of the backfield, as well as being the emotional pulse of the offense. Not yet 28, he’s still in what should be the prime of his career. Dealt to Buffalo for Kiko Alonso, and McCoy wasn’t happy about it either.

- Pro Bowl guard Evan Mathis. The darling of Pro Football Focus grading, Mathis is widely regarded as perhaps the best left guard in football. He was cut for no compensation, though the root of his release lies in a dispute about his own compensation. Just for good measure they also cut starting right guard Todd Herremans, a quality veteran stalwart.

- Leading receiver Jeremy Maclin. The speedy Maclin recovered nicely from missing 2013, posting a career-high with 85 catches, 1318 yards and 10 TDs. That made Maclin one of the most effective wideouts in the league. He left via free agency for Kansas City to reunite with former Eagles coach Andy Reid. Keep in mind the Eagles parted with 2013’s top wideout, dangerous DeSean Jackson, before last season.

- Just for good measure, the Eagles also parted ways with outside LB Trent Cole and safety Nate Allen. Cole finished second on the team in sacks while quietly having his best year as an all-around defender. Allen led the team in INTs and fumble recoveries and was also coming off his best all-around season as a starter.

Regardless of the replacements, the talent drain here is undeniable. McCoy took umbrage with the overhaul, crying racism on the part of Kelly on the way out just as Jackson did a year earlier. Never mind that Mathis, Herremans and Foles are white, but I digress…

The long and the short of it here is that Coach Kelly is banking on his system being more important than the players in it. That worked at Oregon, and it’s largely worked for Bill Belichick in New England. But Kelly’s exotic, college-based system remains an unproven commodity in the NFL, as is the coach himself. This toppling of the top of the roster will be Kelly’s ultimate test.

2. Can Sam Bradford be the answer at quarterback?

If you’ve followed my work for any appreciable amount of time, you know my answer here is an emphatic “Hell no!” Because my editor won’t let me get away with such a brief answer, I’ll expand my thoughts.

I have never been a Bradford guy, not even in his salad days at Oklahoma. I found him to be a reactive passer, not an anticipatory thrower. He has always had fine accuracy and requisite arm strength, but the decision making process often took an extra beat. It largely worked in college because defenders simply couldn’t react fast enough in their own right or handle the impressive cadre of playmaking weapons Bradford had at his disposal, including new teammate DeMarco Murray. The reactive throwing led to some awful INTs in his Rams days, however.

Bradford’s way of avoiding those mistakes appears to be getting the ball out quicker on more predetermined, faster-developing routes. That’s smart. It also helps play against the larger question that hangs heavy over Bradford: his fragility.

The quarterback here, the most integral and indispensable piece of the NFL puzzle, has suffered major injuries in four of the last six seasons. He missed all of 2014 with a torn ACL, the second time in less than a year he blew out his knee. He missed five games with a severe ankle sprain in 2011. Back in college, his right (throwing) shoulder was the root of the problem, as he had surgery to repair the A/C joint but had the same shoulder injured once again just nine months later.

That’s a pretty extensive list of serious injuries. Five of his last seven seasons have been marred by injury, four of them serious in nature.

Now consider his new team, a completely unfamiliar offense from what he operated in St. Louis, intentionally got rid of both starting guards and the top receiver. The new starting guards are a castoff from Houston’s practice squad (Andrew Gardner) and a subpar right tackle who missed all of last year (Allen Barbre). Neither tight end, Zach Ertz nor Brent Celek, are more than average as pass blockers; they are receiving weapons first and foremost.

In summary…the Eagles are trying to protect the most fragile QB in the league with a downgraded offensive line, in an offense where the quarterback is asked to take an inordinate amount of hits in the read-option running game.

It reads worse than the actuality will be, but make no mistake this is a major gamble on Bradford. His history makes the odds long it pays off. Bradford offers a higher ceiling than Foles, but hitting that ceiling is less likely.

3. Will the pass defense improve?

It doesn’t get the national attention, but one of the dirty little secrets in Philadelphia is the leaky pass defense. In fact, no team has allowed more passing yards over the last two seasons than these Eagles.

Raw yardage is generally a poor way to draw conclusions. And when some of the deeper statistics get factored in, it doesn’t look quite so dire…

Considering the Eagles ranked highly in both sack and completion percentage last year, the problem appear to be more with tackling and blown assignments. Sack percentage is a reliable indicator of pressure, while completion percentage is a good way to judge actual physical pass coverage, and the Eagles were good in both regards.

Fixing the tackling and blown assignment issues is not as easy as replacing a safety, as they’ve done by importing Walter Thurmond in place of Nate Allen. Considering Thurmond is a slot cornerback by trade--and coming off a season with the rival Giants that ended with a torn pec-- I’m at a loss to think how it can possibly improve.

Philly tapped the Seattle well (Thurmond is a former Seahawk as well) by signing prized free agent CB Byron Maxwell. He’s a great cover man, but as noted above man coverage wasn’t necessarily the problem. They also brought in Nolan Carroll from Miami, ostensibly to start outside opposite Maxwell. But instead he’s moving into the slot to replace Brandon Boykin, unquestionably the best and most positionally responsible member of the secondary a year ago. Kelly dealt him to Pittsburgh for minimal return on investment.

Nolan Carroll is still starting opposite of Maxwell. Just moving inside in Nickel, Rowe or Biggers will play outside in that package.

— Matthew Chastain (@MattChastain_) September 9, 2015

Rowe and Biggers refer to second-round pick Eric Rowe and E.J. Biggers. Both of those guys are new too. I’m a huge Rowe fan, but he’s still ironing out the kinks of switching from safety before his final year at Utah. He’ll be great in time, but likely not right away.

The Eagles have swapped out the top four corners on the roster and added a fifth who will play safety, next to another cornerback-turned safety in Malcolm Jenkins. They’re playing behind a new inside LB in Kiko Alonso, a guy who knows the system from being the quarterback of Kelly’s last Oregon defense but who is unfamiliar with his teammates. The outside LBs, notably Brandon Graham, should never be relied upon in coverage. It doesn’t mean they’re not talented players, just that they’re not good at one particular skill.

The overall talent level has definitely improved, but look at this like a basketball team. The four or five guys in the secondary must function as a complete unit, cohesive and quick to understand and recognize how their mates will see things and react to what they’re seeing. That takes time. It’s why the five old guys typically win in pickup hoops games against far more physically skilled youngsters who are randomly playing together. It’s why I’m not as convinced as most pundits seem to be that the Eagles pass defense will markedly improve. 

4. Can the turnover problem turn around?

Last year, no team gave the ball away more than the Eagles. They turned it over an astonishing 36 times, and that comes even though the team recovered 50% of available fumbles, a figure which (self-obviously) ranked in the middle of the pack.

The defense took the ball back 28 times, which is an impressive total. But as mentioned above, the two guys most responsible for creating those turnovers (Allen and Cole) are now playing elsewhere. Defensive Coordinator Bill Davis’ units have been reliably good at creating takeaways, however, so this is less of a concern than the offense. Still, it’s hard to expect more than last year’s total.

Adding Demarco Murray doesn’t necessarily help the fumble situation. He has 12 fumbles in his four seasons, including five last year. McCoy had 10 fumbles in the same period, four in 2014. Bradford has always had a propensity for fumbling; his 10 in 2011 led the league and has 27 in 49 career games. Foles has 16 in 28 career games. As for interceptions? Foles has a career INT rate of 1.9%, albeit heavily weighted by his superlative 2013. Bradford’s rate is 2.2. Foles also wins the TD percentage battle, 5.2 to 3.4.

Will Bradford and Murray get better at ball security? Sure, it can happen. But they’re not the only culprits. Darren Sproles lost four fumbles last year in just 97 touches. He’s expected to do more as the scatback and receiving option out of the backfield, but his diminutive size always makes that a risky proposition. There is a definite risk/reward here in the moves they’ve made and the high-paced offense they run. Poor ball security is also self-feeding monster. Opposing defenses know they can get the ball out of the offense, and they’ll be even more aggressive in trying to create those takeaways. If the -8 margin of a year ago doesn’t get back to at least even, it’s hard to see these Eagles soaring. 

5. What has Chip Kelly learned?

By now you’ve noted all sorts of references to the head coach here. This is because no team is more about the impact of the coaching staff than these Eagles. Not even Bill Belichick has deeper tentacles on every aspect of his team than Kelly has here.

This is the third year of the grand experiment, a daring revolution that an unconventional college coach could install the fundamentals of his college system in the NFL and succeed. Some things have definitely worked. The offensive spacing and defensive pressures that thrived in Autzen Stadium work in Lincoln Financial Field. Isolating playmakers in space on both sides of the ball has caught more conservative opposing coaches unprepared and unsure. The increased nutritional focus, the emphasis on full physical and mental wellness, these have also been a success.

Other facets have not translated so smoothly. The warp speed pace on offense has been a non-starter. While the Eagles did lead the league in plays per game last year, there are too many wasted plays. Despite running the most plays, they finished dead last in time of possession. That wears down the defense and leaves them vulnerable to losing leads. When the pace is deliberately slowed, the offense doesn’t work so well. It’s a classic Catch-22.

The big challenge this year is whether or not his gamble on so many injury risks pays off. It starts with Bradford, but there are a lot of players who are either coming off serious injury or have battled durability in the past. Kiko Alonso is a good example. He was very effective in Buffalo but the Bills couldn’t trust his ability to stay on the field. Wideout Miles Austin is another. Even DeMarco Murray has had durability problems earlier in his career. 

Kelly is rolling the dice that the injured veteran is more impactful than developing young depth. Only three draft picks made the final roster, and just Rowe and first-round wideout Nelson Agholor figure to see regular snaps. It’s an all-in to win right now strategy. This will either create a positive urgency or a suffocating pressure on the players, most of whom are very new to the team and have seen Kelly readily part with really good players who he felt (right or wrong) weren’t all in with him. Treating highly paid professionals who are trying to maximize their return on their relatively short earning window like disposable commodities is a very difficult sell.

The bottom line for Kelly is that he desperately needs playoff success to validate his mission. Many traditionalists in the NFL are rooting against him, and for that reason I desperately want it to work. A lot of folks do. But polarizing figures need to find that success quicker than others. Ask Nick Saban or Bill Belichick in his Cleveland days. Kelly is rapidly approaching that “now or never” moment, and this team has the talent in place where expectations are heightened. If Kelly conforms his system just a bit to better fit the NFL, this could be a fantastic season in Philadelphia.

Forecast: These Eagles have a very good chance of running away and hiding with the NFC East. Despite opening with three of four on the road, it’s hard to see them coming out of that stretch with fewer than two wins. If they can beat the rival Cowboys in Week 2 (the one home game), they’ll be in the divisional driver’s seat. Other than a late three-game stretch with trips to Detroit and New England followed by a tough defense in Buffalo at home, the schedule is quite manageable.

As long as Bradford, Maxwell and Murray stay healthy, this team wins the NFC East. It’s a real tough call with so many injury risks, but I’m inclined to believe it works in 2015. Philadelphia finishes 12-4 and secures a home playoff game and an NFC East title.