Michael Vick, DeSean Jackson say Chip Kelly destroyed Eagles’ ‘dream team’
Vick shared a story about crying during the 2013 preseason because of Kelly's quarterback battle pitting the veteran against a young Nick Foles.
Chip Kelly made Michael Vick cry.
The former Eagles quarterback revealed how intense things got during the 2013 season in an appearance on the Simms and Lefkoe podcast, hosted by ex-NFL quarterback Chris Simms and media personality/Eagles fan Adam Lefkoe in Atlanta ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Vick, who shared the mic with former teammate DeSean Jackson, divulged that the battle with Nick Foles for the starting quarterback spot drove him to tears at one point.
“True story, that year I’m laying in my hyperbaric chamber before a preseason game. I never told y’all this,” he said, gesturing toward Jackson.
“I’m battling Nick Foles for a starting position. Now, I’ve been a starter for 12 years of my career. Now I’m in a battle which I’m clearly winning — nothing against Nick, I have nothing but respect for him; we love him to death.
“I’m sitting in my hyperbaric chamber with tears coming out my eyes crying because I’m like, I done did everything I could for Chip Kelly, I done showed him the leadership, the play on the field speaks for itself … galvanizing the team when we had a tough time with what happened with Riley Cooper, and I’m like, it’s still not enough. ...
“We did everything we could to show him we’d give him everything we got, 110 percent. And it was more about his system and himself than us, and that’s why we all just kind of broke up.”
Kelly, who was hired in January 2013, eventually dismantled a core of valuable players and was fired in 2015 after almost three full seasons and a 26-21 record.
Vick and Jackson reminisced about members of that team — Jeremy Maclin, LeSean McCoy, Brent Celek, even a young Zach Ertz — and what could have been.
“[Kelly] messed up the dream team,” Jackson said. “We really could have been Super Bowl champs.”
Jackson, now a receiver for the Buccaneers, delved into Kelly’s system and how it de-emphasized the players on the team, which rubbed players the wrong way.
“It’s like this: You have a coach who comes in and brings in his own stigma, or his culture, or his philosophy,” he said. “[Kelly’s] was one of the cultures where he didn’t believe in players; it was his system.
“In the NFL, it’s players that win championships. Don’t get me wrong — the New England Patriots have a system that Bill Belichick has installed … I just felt like, there’s players in this league. You have Tom Brady, you have [Julian] Edelman, you have [Rob] Gronkowski, you have all these pieces to the puzzle and Chip Kelly was one of those coaches like, ‘This is my system.’ “
Jackson said Kelly told him, Vick, McCoy and Maclin that they didn’t have starting positions when they entered training camp.
“He was like, y’all are 3s, 2s, y’all gotta earn your positions. … You had Pro Bowl players battling with practice players.”
Eagles fans might feel particularly hurt thinking about how Kelly got rid of some key players after hearing Vick and Jackson talk about their quarterback-receiver connection. Vick said that it was “perfect” for him and that he’d been searching for a “dynamic receiver, a guy I could count on anytime during the game.”
“I used to sit on the bench and be like, you know, if I could just throw one pass to this guy …” Vick said. “I didn’t know the next year I would get the chance to do that, and this guy [Jackson] actually helped me get a new contract.”
Jackson said catching passes from Vick “was like a dream come true.” He told the story of how he grew up watching Vick with the Falcons, and how excited the locker room was when former coach Andy Reid mentioned Vick might be joining the team.
“I can remember the year before we got him," Jackson recalled, "… Andy Reid, all the dudes was asking us like, what if we get Mike Vick? We’re gonna go crazy. We’re gonna be a Super Bowl team.”
Jackson’s time with the Eagles ended after that season. He was released in March 2014. Vick signed with the Jets that same month. Maclin spent the season on IR and played one more year before signing with the Chiefs. McCoy was traded in 2015.
Said Vick: “We felt like it was just broke up so abruptly, [it was] traumatizing.”
Watch and listen to the whole podcast: