DeSean Jackson puts former Eagles coach Chip Kelly on blast: ‘I don’t respect Chip Kelly’
DeSean Jackson put Chip Kelly, his former coach with the Philadelphia Eagles, on blast in a recent interview.
Jackson was vocal about Kelly in the past. The now-UCLA football head coach infamously released Jackson following a career year in 2013 amid gang ties in Jackson’s hometown in California.
But Jackson’s release was the first of questionable moves by Kelly during his short stint in Philadelphia.
“I don’t respect Chip Kelly,” Jackson said. “I don’t like giving him click, clickbait, whatever they want to call it. What he did bro, you can talk to anyone who was ever a Philadelphia Eagle fan bro and they’ll tell you the same thing. He dismantled our team. There’s no way you get rid of DeSean Jackson, LeSean McCoy, Michael Vick, Jeremy Maclin. On and on like you know what I’m saying? You break down a team? We were Philadelphia.”
Kelly’s first year in Philadelphia, 2013, the Eagles went 10-6, won the NFC East but lost in the Wild Card Round at home against the New Orleans Saints.
The next year, Kelly released Jackson and the Eagles finished 10-6 once again but missed the playoffs. That’s where the head coach elected to not bring back Maclin, who signed with the Chiefs and former Eagles coach Andy Reid.
And, Kelly traded arguably the best running back in franchise history, McCoy, to the Buffalo Bills for linebacker Kiko Alonso, who lasted just one year with the team. Kelly was fired in 2015, going 6-9 and not coaching the final game of the season.
The Eagles would go on to win the Super Bowl only two years later after major roster reconstruction. But Jackson’s bitterness didn’t go away.
Jackson and Vick were gone from the team after 2013 and McCoy and Maclin were gone after 2014, as well as quarterback Nick Foles, who took over for an injured Vick in 2013 halfway through the season.
Foles would return in 2017 and ended up winning the Super Bowl MVP award while Jackson came back to Philadelphia in 2019, past his prime.
Jackson routinely torched Philadelphia when he played with the then-Washington Redskins, as well as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in matchups against the Eagles.
Obviously, there was no love lost between Jackson and Kelly. Kelly went 2-14 in his lone season with the San Francisco 49ers in 2016 before returning to college football with UCLA in 2018.
After going 46-7 at Oregon from 2009-12, Kelly is 27-29 with UCLA since ‘18, but getting the Bruins to a No. 21 ranking at the end of last season.
Jackson and Maclin are among two of the best wide receivers in franchise history, McCoy is regarded as the best back in Eagles’ history and Vick resurrected his career in Philadelphia from 2009-13.
It was certainly a memorable and interesting era in the franchise’s history, but don’t expect Jackson and Kelly to ever get along again.