Peter King’s site MMQB is doing a countdown of the 100 most influential people on the 2015 NFL season. Coming in at #3 on that list is none other than our beloved Chip Kelly. Here is the piece by Emily Kaplan. There are some terrific quotes by Jimmy Johnson.

“When you have one guy making the decisions—like I was in Dallas or Miami, like Bill Belichick is in New England, and now like Chip is—you don’t have a lot of devil’s advocates. You don’t have a lot of people who work for you second-guessing you. If you have a committee involved in the decision-making, 95% of the time, you’re going to be conservative. There’s always going to be one person saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know about this,’ or, ‘Wait, let’s think about that.’ When one guy makes the decision, you take chances. That’s what Chip has done this year.

“I’m a fan of Chip Kelly. I like what he’s doing. The biggest concern I have is that even though they’ve been the healthiest team in the league the last couple years, because of his holistic approach with sports science and nutrition, he’s taking some big risks trading and obtaining players with major injuries. That’s the only concern I have.

“You don’t let media or pundits affect you, but of course you are aware of what they’re saying. It was both comical and hurtful. Even though you found it comical because you knew they had no idea what you were trying to do, nobody wants to be criticized. At times, it would almost feel personal. It had nothing to do with your decision-making, it had to do with the fact that they just didn’t like you—because you rubbed somebody wrong. Maybe you didn’t do right by one of their favorite players, which Chip has done, which I did, which Belichick has done. With Belichick, he has the credibility so people accept it. Late in my career, they began to accept it. With Chip right now, people are not accepting it. Some people are not accepting trading LeSean McCoy. Some people are not accepting cutting Evan Mathis. Until you win big, people are going to criticize you.

“Chip and I have talked a couple of times, and he’s a very private guy; so much of what we discuss should not be shared. But I did give him one piece of advice this year. He wanted to know what it’s like to be the decision maker as well as the coach. I told him this: You have an advantage in the draft because you know these players. You’ve been in a lot of their homes, you’ve watched them play closely. So the draft is when guys like you and I have the advantage. The problem I ran into in Miami (I didn’t have it in Dallas because free agency had just begun) was that during the season, I was so busy that I couldn’t stay on top of all of the things I wanted to: picking up players from the street, making some moves, especially on the bottom end of your roster. You’re so busy prepping with your current team for that week’s game that you can’t do it all by yourself. The job is overwhelming to do it 12 months of the year all by yourself. I found that out. My advice would be to have somebody—and not a group of people, just one person that you trust, that you like, that’s loyal, that’s like-minded—do those type of things. That will help because during the season itself, the job can be a little overwhelming. But in the offseason? The draft and free agency? Take advantage of your talents. You’re good at evaluating players because you did it in college just like I did in college, so that’s where you can shine. But during the season is when you’re going to need a little bit of help.

“Here’s the big question: Do you want to play it safe and be good or do you want to take a chance and be great? If you’re not afraid to fail, you can do some great things in this league. But most people are afraid to fail, so they play it safe. I always liked to take risks because I was always confident in my abilities. I think—no, I know—Chip is confident in his abilities, too.”

Chip isn’t afraid to fail. I know I’ve said that a few times and I’m sure some of you are sick of hearing it. But I can’t stress enough how important that is.

The old axiom in football is that more games are lost than are won. Avoid mistakes and you won’t lose. Joe Paterno preached this. Marty Schottenheimer was a huge advocate in the NFL. Don’t turn the ball over. Avoid penalties. Don’t be afraid to punt. You do win a lot of games if you have some talent and get your players to play it safe. But you won’t win many championships.

That isn’t to say if you suddenly take risks you are going to win. You have to keep them in your arsenal, though. And they can’t be “safe” risks. You don’t go for it on 4th/1 at the opponents 39 and think of that as a risk. If you fail, the opponent is still on his side of the field. Go for it when the other team isn’t expecting it…from your 39. That’s a risk. You make that call because you have prepared your players on how to execute the play properly and think they’ll do it. You expect the play to work, but you’re willing to deal with the circumstances if it fails.

Risk might be a personnel move or a coaching hire. It might involve who you draft or the kind of scheme you run. Kelly has taken plenty of risks since coming to Philly. More have worked than failed, but this year will be the real test with the moves that brought in Sam Bradford, DeMarco Murray, Kiko Alonso, and Byron Maxwell, as well as the non-moves that led to Allen Barbre at LG, a competition at RG and Walter Thurmond playing FS.

Not all of those moves are going to work. And yet if one or two pans out better than hoped, that might help put this team over the hump.

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