The Chip Kelly Offense: Part One

Jacob Feldman

chip_kellyIn the world of fantasy football, we keep track of quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and tight ends. Some of us keep track of defensive positions as well. One position we often forget to factor in is that of the Head Coach. While it is pretty rare that a fantasy league actually has the Head Coaches in their starting lineup, they do have a rather profound impact on how their players perform. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at what happens to a deep threat receiver when his coach changes and the team switches from a vertical passing game to a West Coast style of offense.

For the most part, we know what certain coaches are going to do and how they are going to run their teams. We know exactly the style of offense Tom Coughlin is going to run with the Giants because he’s been doing it for so long. We also have a pretty good idea of what Andy Reid is going to do in Kansas City this year even though he’s new there -we saw what he did for so long in Philadelphia. Some coaches are a little bit tougher to get a read on, but we at least know that their style will vary to fit their players.

Every once in a while we get a curve ball thrown our way and this almost always takes the form of a college coach jumping up to the professional level. Two years ago, we had Pete Carroll making the move and his players like Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch caught everyone’s attention. This year, the big name everyone is watching and wondering about is none other than Chip Kelly of the Philadelphia Eagles.

I’m going to do my best to look at what Kelly did during his time at Oregon and break down his usage of players and the different offensive roles they filled – this will help us to know what we can expect from certain positions as a whole. Once that is done, I’m going match players on the current Eagles roster to those roles in order to better predict what we can expect not only out of players like Michael Vick and LeSean McCoy, but also the backups like James Casey and Bryce Brown.

Before we get into any of that, let’s review why Chip Kelly in the NFL is as exciting as it is. While we can’t expect his offense to transition perfectly, we can expect the NFL version to have some very strong similarities to the college counterpart. Here is what the Oregon Ducks managed to do over Kelly’s four years as Head Coach:

  • Four conference championships (2 outright, 2 ties)
  • Four BCS bowl game appearances
  • 46-7 record (86.8% win percentage)
  • Top 5 in the entire FBS in total yards gained each of the past three seasons (2010-2012)
  • Top 5 in the entire FBS in rushing yards per game each of the past three seasons
  • Top 3 in the entire FBS in points scored per game each of the past three seasons

In other words, Chip Kelly’s offense not only wins games, but it puts up some pretty gaudy numbers as well. His teams score lots of points and rack up a lot of yards, especially on the ground. The main reason for this is the breakneck pace at which his team functions. He averaged between 75 and 80 offensive snaps per game over the past few years at Oregon. The average NFL offense is about 10-20 snaps fewer than that – that means if he can keep up that pace (I have my doubts), his players would be playing the equivalent of 15%-25% extra per game. More opportunity to produce is always a good thing. Even if his NFL offense is a touch slower than the college one, the players on his team will have more opportunities than in the past.

Hopefully you understand where all of the excitement is coming from now. Let’s take a look at the various positions and see how they contribute to all of this production over those high flying three years. All numbers are on a per game basis. Games a player was injured or did not play were not counted in order to give us an image of how that role produced when it was on the field instead of the individual player.

Quarterbacks
(More than 50 pass attempts)

Year

Player

Passing Yards

Passing TDs

Interceptions

Rushes

Rushing Yards

Rushing TDs

2012

Marcus Mariota

206

2.5

0.5

8.2

57.8

0.4

2011

Darron Thomas

212

2.5

0.5

4.3

15.8

0.2

2010

Darron Thomas

222

2.3

0.7

7.2

37.4

0.4

One of the first things that stands out is the quarterbacks in Chip Kelly’s offense aren’t all who dominate. Averaging somewhere in the low 200s when it comes to passing yards per game isn’t anything to write home about. In terms of NFL quarterbacks, that would easily be in the bottom third of the league. The good news is that they do score. In the big play offense Kelly runs, they often exploited defenses and found the big play for a touchdown.

When it comes to the quarterback using his feet, this happened from time-to-time, but wasn’t really the norm. You can see that the range is roughly 4-8 carries a game for 16-58 yards and a touchdown every few games – that means that we are talking more like Russell Wilson rushing quarterback than we are Robert Griffin III. When you put it all together, you’re talking about a quarterback who will probably be a high end QB2 or maybe low end QB1. Either way, I’m more comfortable with them as my backup than my starter.

Running Backs
(More than 50 carries)

Year

Player

Carries

Rushing Yards

Rushing TDs

Receptions

Receiving Yards

Receiving TDs

2012

Kenjon Barner

21.4

135.9

1.6

1.5

19.7

0.2

2012

De’Anthony Thomas

7.1

53.9

0.8

3.5

34.2

0.4

2012

Byron Marshall

8.7

44.7

0.4

 

2011

LaMichael James

20.6

150.4

1.5

1.4

17.5

0.1

2011

Kenjon Barner

12.7

78.3

0.9

1.4

15.3

0.3

2011

De’Anthony Thomas

3.9

42.5

0.5

3.3

43.2

0.6

 

2010

LaMichael James

24.5

144.3

1.8

1.4

17.3

0.3

2010

Kenjon Barner

8.3

50.1

0.5

1.2

11

0.2

2010

Remene Alston Jr.

9

50.1

0.7

Running backs are what make Chip Kelly’s offense his offense. It is definitely a run first, second and third style of play. Remember the quarterbacks were getting 4-8 rushes per game as well. Some of the numbers are a little inflated because often times one back would miss a game and another would get 25-30 carries in their place, which skewed the average carries number a little bit. However, you can clearly see that he likes to run the ball and he was very good at doing it. Over the three years, his teams averaged a ridiculous 300 yards rushing per game. That’s more than several NFL teams passed for last year.

Several other items also stand out to me when it comes to Kelly’s usage of running backs. The first is there is definitely a pecking order. Regardless of what some reports are saying about there being a 1A and 1B situation in the Eagles backfield, that really isn’t Kelly’s style. He has his main back who gets 20-25 touches a game, then he has a secondary back who touches it 8-12 times a game. In other words, it is more of a 75%/25% split, largely because one running back can’t handle as heavy of a workload as Kelly wants. However, when you have 30-40 touches a game going to running backs, there are an awful lot of carries to go around.

The second item that stands out to me is he really doesn’t use his backs to catch passes out of the backfield very much. With the exception of De’Anthony Thomas (who is an exceptional pass catcher), his running backs only caught 1-2 passes a game, though Thomas caught 3-4 passes a game on average. Kelly didn’t throw the ball a ton in the first place, but working the running backs into the passing game was even more rare – this hurts their value in PPRs leagues, but there should be more than enough carries to make up for it.

Wide Receivers & Tight Ends
(24 or more catches)

Year

Player

Receptions

Receiving Yards

Receiving TDs

Carries

Rushing Yards

Rushing TDs

2012

Josh Huff (WR)

3.2

49.3

0.7

2012

Colt Lyerla (TE)

2.1

32.7

0.5

1.1

6.4

0.1

2012

Daryle Hawkins (WR)

1.9

15.5

0.2

 

2011

Lavasier Tuinei (WR)

3.4

42.8

0.7

2011

David Paulson (TE)

2.6

36.5

0.5

2011

Josh Huff (WR)

3.1

43.0

0.2

 

2010

Jeff Maehl (WR)

5.9

82.8

0.9

2010

DJ Davis (WR)

3.5

39.2

0.3

2010

David Paulson (TE)

2.0

34.8

0.3

2010

Lavasier Tuinei (WR)

3.3

36.0

0.2

If you didn’t believe me before that Kelly’s offenses run first, second and third, maybe the wide receiver and tight end data helped prove that point to you. When you consider only 3-4 players actually caught 24 or more passes each of these seasons (often times just barely more than 24), that doesn’t speak to a game plan that features the pass. However, each season, 7-9 players did catch at least ten passes, which means that the ball is getting spread around quite a bit. When you combine spreading the ball around with an offense that doesn’t pass much in the first place, it leads to some pretty poor receiving stats.

The only exception to this trend was Jeff Maehl in 2010 – he was the only pass catcher who I can say was actually featured in a Chip Kelly offense as he was the only one to break 50 receptions or 1,000 yards receiving over the past three years in the high flying offense.

The primary pass catchers weren’t used very often if at all in the running game. Some of the running backs were used a limited amount in the passing game, but it doesn’t seem to be a two way street in that regard.

Another item of note is tight ends show up on the list each year. While you can’t really say they are featured, tight ends were involved in the passing game. The issue is they weren’t involved enough to be on the fantasy radar if they were NFL players. Even the top receiver in the offense (with the one exception of Maehl in 2010) didn’t produce at a level to be noteworthy to fantasy owners. Unless you can get a score out of a pass catcher, you’re probably going to be disappointed with their production.

Bottom Line

We know Chip Kelly’s offense in the NFL will be different than what he ran at Oregon. The better question is how much different it will be. From the early reports, it is going to be similar, but not identical – that means we are looking at a very unique offense that will definitely feature the running back position while de-emphasizing the passing game.

Part two of this look at Chip Kelly’s offense will focus on individual players currently on the Eagles roster to see how well their skill set matches that of the players that Kelly used in college. I will also make an educated guess at how they do or don’t fit into his offense and how Kelly might adapt his game plan for that player.

jacob feldman