Chip Kelly gets endorsements from around the NFL world

Many Eagles fans were hoping to hear that Jon Gruden would be named the next Eagles head coach, but they can take solace in the fact that Gruden is one of the biggest backers of Chip Kelly in the NFL community. Upon hearing that Kelly got the Eagles job, Gruden expressed confidence that Kelly will be a success at this level.

"This guy's a stud," said Gruden. "This guy's a stand-up guy. He's the first guy to take credit when things go wrong, and I really believe he's going to be a dominant coach for a long time."

The ironic thing is that if the Eagles had hired Gruden, they likely would have seen a lot of concepts he learned from Chip Kelly. Mike Mayock said last week that Gruden had invited Kelly to his home in recent offseasons to learn more about Chip's offense.

Another guy who was interested in how Chip did things on offense was Bill Belichick.

"I was interested to hear how he did it," said Belichick. "I would say he expanded it to a different level and it was very interesting to understand what he was doing. Certainly I've learned a lot from talking to Chip about his experiences with it and how he does it and his procedure and all that."

After his discussions and meetings with Kelly, Belichick incorporated a lot of Kelly's concepts into his own offense. As a result, the Patriots run more plays and have a faster time per play than any other team in the NFL. They also led the NFL is overall offense and points per game.

As for whether Chip can translate this offense to the NFL himself? NFL Network's Mike Lombardi said you'd be wrong to assume the exact offense you saw at Oregon will be what he tries in the NFL.

"He is a very successful coach, he is a very smart coach, and he is a very analytical coach.," said Lombardi. "He is going to take the success he had - and he studies the pro game - and he is going to apply to the pro game. I think his ideas of what he does at Oregon will always come into the NFL but they won't necessarily be the offense. Anyone who says ‘well, Chip Kelly's offense won't work in the NFL,' they really don't know Chip Kelly as a person. Chip Kelly is very smart, he is very analytical, and he will adapt to the pro game and his talents as a leader will take over as head coach."

Kelly's old head coach from New Hampshire, Bill Bowles, said Kelly's greatest talent has been creating offenses around his personnel.

"He's bright enough to know you have to match your offense with the talent you have. Not all coaches have that - the ability to make changes or adaptations, and the foresight to analyze and evaluate the personnel you have, and create the best offense for your personnel."

Finally, what do his former players think?

"Chip Kelly is a mastermind," said Ravens TE Ed Dickson.