Brian Dawkins open to role with Chip Kelly's Eagles

I'm a couple days late on this, but Brian Dawkins was a guest of Mike Missanelli's show on 97.5 The Fanatic last week and something interesting came up.

Dawkins was having an event at Chickie & Petes and Chip Kelly just happened to show up. He was invited to say a few words...

"The spirit that Brian Dawkins played with is what the Philadelphia Eagles are all about... I'm here to support Brian, one of the all time great Eagles and I'm excited to have him as part of the program and gonna to lean on him a lot to be able to tell our young guys how the game is played because he played the game the way it is supposed to be played."

"We're going to play like that guy played," Kelly said.

Missanelli asked Dawk whether Chip might have tipped anything off with that statement as far as him joining the staff?

"He didn't tip anything off," Dawkins said. "It was a surprise for him to say it in that way and that's something we can talk about at some other point. As far as that is concerned, that's something I've always said I'm open to as far as doing whatever I could to help."

He was also asked whether he'd accept an invite to go to training camp to work with the young guys on the team?

"We'd have to talk details about ways I could help without being too far away from family for too long."

The sense that I get is that Dawkins probably isn't interested in being a coach. That doesn't really surprise me because I've always said that great players of today don't really go on to become coaches. For one, they've made plenty of money in their careers and the reality of being an NFL coach, especially an assistant, is tough. It's long hours and a lot of work. Is a hall of fame player like Brian Dawkins going to want to spend 18 hours a day breaking down film and installing defensive concepts with 23 year olds? Probably not. I wouldn't if I were him.

But where Dawkins could be helpful and seems open to is to just be around sometimes. Visit the team now and then, talk to some guys, take an ambassadorial role kind of like Hugh Douglas had with the team.

I think that would clearly be something that would make fans happy and would certainly be a great way for Chip to bridge the gap between the good times of the previous era and the future. But as for the fans that would like to see Dawkins coaching one day? Don't bet on that ever happening.