And he probably should have gone. It seems like he might need a job soon.
Kelly’s NFL career could be ending its final days. His San Francisco 49ers were awful in a 41-13 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. The score was 21-0 before the buzz from the early games on Sunday had worn off. If he doesn’t get fired after this season, he’ll enter next season with the hottest seat in the league.
When Kelly took the 49ers job, he was given one of the worst rosters you’ll see in the NFL. There are very few blue-chip players and not even many young players to build around. But Kelly hasn’t gotten anything extra out of the 49ers roster either.
His offense hasn’t performed any miracles. The defense is embarrassing. Pick a play from Sunday, either when Devonta Freeman ran right through three 49ers for a 5-yard touchdown or when Freeman ran through one of the biggest holes you’ll ever see in the NFL for a 34-yard touchdown. The 49ers allowed 550 yards. It’s hard for a defense on Kelly’s teams; the offense wants to run a lot of plays and that taxes the defense.
The 49ers won in Week 1 against an unprepared Los Angeles Rams team that eventually fired coach Jeff Fisher. They haven’t won since, and most games have been blowouts. With each loss, the calls for Kelly’s job have gotten louder from the Bay Area media.
Kelly started his pro coaching career well, with back-to-back 10-win seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles. He was an out-of-the-box hire for the Eagles, as a college offensive whiz with no pro experience. Then it turned bad. He was given personnel control and ruined the Eagles roster. He was fired before Week 17 after going 6-9 last season. This year, handed a shockingly thin roster, he has gone 1-13. Maybe no coach could have done better with this group, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he paid the price for one of the worst seasons in 49ers history.
Kelly probably had a chance to go back to Oregon, where he was a star. The Ducks had a vacancy and it’s hard to imagine they wouldn’t have taken him back. Everybody would have been happy. Oregon would have had its coach back, Kelly would presumably go back to being one of the more successful college coaches around, and the 49ers could have started over without having to fire another coach. But Kelly said he learned commitment from his father, who recently died, and he couldn’t leave the 49ers during the season. Oregon hired Willie Taggart from South Florida.
Maybe things miraculously turn around over the next two weeks or the 49ers find themselves unwilling to fire Kelly and start over with their fourth coach in four seasons next year. But it seems like the Chip Kelly NFL experiment is nearing its end.
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