Chip Kelly adds Bill Lazor to Eagles staff

Chip Kelly may have found his quarterback coach. CBS sports' Bruce Feldman is reporting that Virginia offensive coordinator Bill Lazor has joined the Eagles.

The team is not confirming or commenting on any new hires until the staff is complete, so we won't officially know Lazor's role until then. However, he was a QB himself at Cornell and has been a QB coach for the Seahawks under Mike Holmgren & the Redskins under Joe Gibbs. So it stands to reason he'll coach QBs here since it's assumed that Pat Shurmur will be the offensive coordinator. Lazor was also an assistant on Dan Reeve's staff with the Falcons, so he's certainly worked for some pretty impressive bosses.

Despite being only 40, Lazor certainly comes with a wealth of NFL QB coaching experience, but has also been a coordinator at the college level for the past 3 seasons. He ran a pro style offense at Virginia and as our own Craig Powers points out, had some success there.

Lazor led the Cavaliers offense to instant improvement in his first year as OC, but effectiveness tapered off over the next two seasons. The UVA offense was among the worst in the nation when he took over, but shot up to 59th in Football Outsiders' S&P+, a statistic that measures explosiveness and sucessful plays, in 2010. The Cavaliers' drive efficiency also improved, according to FEI, as they climbed to 71st in 2010 and 51st in 2011. However, the offense took a step back in 2012, finishing 90th in FEI and 97th in S&P+.

It's interesting that between Lazor and Shurmur, Kelly has added guys to his offensive staff with NFL experience and that aren't related to the spread offense. The speculation is that since Kelly is arguably the foremost authority on the spread, he's surrounding himself with pro style NFL guys and his offense will some type of hybrid of the two.