All those bad contracts the Philadelphia Eagles added to the books last offseason? Not Chip Kelly’s fault, according to the man himself.
The current 49ers coach blamed top Eagles executive Howie Roseman for the bad contracts the team handed out to the likes of DeMarco Murray and Byron Maxwell last offseason – contracts that totaled $45 million in guaranteed money and were quickly moved on after the 2015 season ended after poor seasons.
“Oh yeah,” Kelly said when asked if Roseman wrote up the contracts in question, via Eliot Shorr-Parks of NJ.com. “I’ve never negotiated a contract in my life. I have nothing to do with any contracts.”
Kelly said his role was simply informing the higher-ups who he wanted, not negotiating the deals.
“We evaluated the players, said we wanted them,” Kelly said, “and then when the contracts came out, the contracts came out.
“We never told him to get (them) at any cost. We told them who we liked, and who the good players are.”
Blame deflection tactics? Perhaps. Kelly identified the players in the first place, and most of them weren’t any good no matter what the price was. However, if Kelly is telling the truth here, it seems as though it may well have been an organizational failure that ultimately led to Kelly’s ouster and Roseman – now back in the GM role – into offloading much of the work that had been done the offseason before.
