Most of Chip Kelly’s former players were not sad to see the NFL coach lose his job, but the Eagles firing Kelly must have been particularly satisfying for someone like DeSean Jackson.
In an interview with Robert Klemko of The MMQB, Jackson was asked about Kelly being canned after a 7-9 season. He chalked it up to “karma.”
“I’m a firm believer that bad karma comes back on you,” Jackson said. “When you ruin a team like that, you do things to peoples’ families, you release people, you trade people, you get rid of good players who build something with the community, with the fans, with the kids—to have a guy come in and change up the team like that, I just believe in karma.”
Kelly has been accused of releasing and trading certain players because of his alleged racist beliefs, but Jackson did not go down that road. Instead, he said that it was “very sad” that Kelly got rid of top talent like himself, Jeremy Maclin and LeSean McCoy and ended up paying for it.
What might actually surprise you is that Jackson admitted he was able to mature more as a person after Kelly and the Eagles released him.
“It made me a lot more mature. I got released coming off what I felt was the best year of my career. I had over 1,100 yards and I still got released? I’m asking myself, What was it that I did wrong?” he said. “But it wasn’t about my skills. It was about off the field. But I was never a bad guy. I just needed to tighten up on my end, be more of a professional and know that there was more to it than how you performed.”
Jackson, of course, was released amid concerns that he was affiliated with a gang. He has since mocked the Eagles over that, but this might be the first time we have heard Jackson admit that being released by Kelly made him take a look in the mirror.
