Philadelphia Eagles Coach Chip Kelly Looks To Legendary New Zealand All Blacks Coach For Inspiration


The Philadelphia Eagles are turning to one of the most successful franchises of all time for some advice.

Only it’s not a football franchise they’re seeking advice from.

This week it was revealed that Philadelphia’s enigmatic coach Chip Kelly reached out to New Zealand All Blacks coach Graham Henry earlier in the year to share coaching strategies. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, who also came along for the meeting, said it was helpful to get the perspective of a team dominating in its sport.

“It’s a total preparation to compete, that’s what the All Blacks are about, that’s why they’ve won multiple championships,” Lurie said Tuesday, from a small office inside Lincoln Financial Field. “It’s an unbelievable story. We had a lot to learn from them. I think there’s a humbleness to it, too. We’re still learning. And Chip’s still learning. And all the people around him are still learning.”

Chip Kelly had a quick learning curve in his first NFL season. He translated his “blur” offense from the University of Oregon to the NFL well, giving the Eagles the top-rated rushing attack and leading them to a playoff berth.

The pressure will be on him to maintain that success now that opponents have had full season to study the fast-paced offense and find its weaknesses.

This is where Graham Henry could be a big help. In seven seasons as coach of the All Blacks, he consistently had the team among the world’s best. The All Blacks won 88 of 103 contests during his tenure, and in Henry’s own career he won IRB International Coach of the Year five times.

Like Chip Kelly, Henry was quite the innovator. While the Philadelphia Eagles push the tempo, racking up the plays on offense, Henry was known for developing an innovative substitution style that saw the team field all kinds of lineup combinations, increasing competition for all positions and keeping opponents on their toes.

Lurie noted that Chip Kelly’s plans for the Philadelphia Eagles are incredibly in-depth.

“He has a very full-scale vision of winning big, and it involves preparing players, preparing them in every possible way to reach peak performance,” Lurie said. “A lot of it has to do with camaraderie. A lot of it has to do with their own personal nutrition, training. All the sports science stuff, it’s real. But he also assembles people, whether it’s coaches, players, to work well together. The whole is greater than the sum of all the individual parts, but he wants every individual player to be extremely well prepared and trained.”

Lurie added that he believes in Chip Kelly’s system and intends for him to be the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles for the long-term. If Kelly can find even half the success with the Eagles as Graham Henry had with the All Blacks, it’s likely he’ll be staying a very long time.

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