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DeSean Jackson finally earned a Super Bowl ring, but it wasn’t with the franchise that drafted him. He never got over being released from the Philadelphia Eagles and still carries a grudge against the polarizing head coach who kicked him to the curb.
Jackson, a second-round pick in 2008, was the top receiver on a loaded team under then-coach Chip Kelly. With Michael Vick at quarterback, the Eagles had playmakers all over the field including LeSean McCoy and Jeremy Maclin. Then, the system-oriented Kelly unceremoniously dismantled the explosive offense that Andy Reid had built. The teardown was puzzling and confusing, something that Jackson still can’t reconcile.
“I don’t respect Chip Kelly. And that’s what it comes down to,” Jackson said, via Eagles Nation. “I don’t like giving them clickbait or whatever what they want to call that s***, but I’m a real one and I just speak on it, bro. What he did, bro — you can talk to anybody that was ever a Philadelphia Eagle fan and they’ll tell you the same thing — he dismantled that team, bro.
“There was no way you get rid of a DeSean Jackson, a LeSean McCoy, a Michael Vick, a Jeremy Maclin, on and on, you know what I’m saying? You really broke down the team and we were Philadelphia.”
LeSean McCoy Never Got Over Eagles Trade
LeSean McCoy, a second-round pick in 2009, has never been shy about his feelings for Chip Kelly. The former head coach wrangled control over personnel decisions away from Howie Roseman in a bitter front-office dispute, then decided to trade away the franchise’s all-time leading rusher for pennies on the dollar. The move didn’t make sense in 2015 and doesn’t make sense all these years later. McCoy never got over it.
“Man, listen. I’m not talking to Chip. We got nothing to talk about,” McCoy told ESPN in 2015. “He can’t call me. He can’t shake my hand. There’s nothing he can do with me. He can’t say s*** to me. It’s as simple as that. I don’t dislike him. I don’t have nothing against him. But there’s nothing for us to talk about.”
Michael Vick had been battling Nick Foles for the starting quarterback job in 2013 when he first saw the writing on the wall. Foles ultimately won the job but a lot of players didn’t feel like Vick got a fair shot. Two years later, that team was broken up.
“We did everything we could to show him we’d give him everything we got, 110 percent,” Vick said, via The Inquirer. “And it was more about his system and himself than us, and that’s why we all just kind of broke up.”
Jackson added: “[Kelly] messed up the dream team. We really could have been Super Bowl champs.”
Kelly even traded away Foles who was sent packing to the Rams in exchange for Sam Bradford. Foles went 14-4 and earned a Pro Bowl nod in the 18 games he started under Kelly’s watch.
Chip Kelly Finally Heads Back to College
Chip Kelly was fired before the final regular-season game in 2015 with the Eagles sitting at 6-9. He went 26-21 over the course of three seasons in Philly, including an NFC East division title and playoff appearance in 2013.
Kelly would land in San Francisco after getting the pink slip and went 2-14 in one disastrous year leading the 49ers. He eventually returned to college football in 2018 after accepting a job as head coach of the UCLA Bruins. Kelly has posted a 27-29 record as he gets set to begin his sixth season at the school.
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