Marty Schottenheimer was a very good, if not great, NFL coach. He developed outstanding teams in Cleveland, Kansas City and San Diego. But Marty never took a team to the Super Bowl. He had 11 teams that won 10 or more regular season games. His career playoff record….just 5-13. One of the biggest problems for Marty is that he played not to lose. Avoid turnovers like the plague. Run the ball. Limit penalties. Use play-action passes to get big plays. Work the clock. Play good defense.

That is a formula for winning. But not building great teams.

Great teams attack. They are bold. They take chances. They play to win.

When the Eagles were up 34-14 on the Rams on Sunday, many people wanted the Eagles to start running out the clock. Chip Kelly wanted more points. The 4th quarter was just beginning. In Kelly’s mind, this wasn’t the time to sit on the lead. This was time to keep attacking and grow the lead. The Eagles drove down into scoring territory, but a fumble by Nick Foles killed the drive and gave the Rams a chance to cut even more into the lead.

Some of you will think Kelly was being careless or dumb with his mindset. I don’t. The offense was working the clock a bit. They weren’t going at hyper-speed. Nick Foles snapped the ball with 12 seconds left on the clock. That was a middle ground between when the Eagles like to snap it and a team trying to maximize the clock.

The Eagles also kept the ball on the ground for the most part. That would keep the clock running. Kelly wanted the clock to run, but he didn’t want his team standing around and going into “don’t lose” mode. The Eagles offense is at its best when it is in rhythm. That means playing with some tempo.

Kelly will work the clock more conservatively in other situations. If the thinks the Eagles can run the 4-minute offense and essentially put the game away, he’ll have Foles really run the clock down before snapping the ball. Kelly is an aggressive coach, but he’s not reckless.

Kelly’s strategy is only going to work if properly executed. Foles fumbled the ball on the verge of FG territory. It would have been interesting to see what happened if he held onto the ball. Would the Eagles have scored a TD and eaten some more clock, leading to a convincing blowout? Maybe there would have been a FG. That would have helped the Eagles, but it wouldn’t necessarily have sealed the game. Or maybe there would still have been a punt and the final result would have been pretty similar.

The Eagles are still a work in progress. As Foles works through his issues and the OL gets better, the offense should do a better job at putting games away in the 4th quarter. There will be other chances. As long as Kelly has weapons, he’s going to keep attacking.

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The Eagles made some practice squad moves on Monday.

#Eagles add safety Jordan Kovacs to the practice squad, bid adieu to practice squad WR Cobi Hamilton. — Les Bowen (@LesBowen) October 6, 2014

This is an interesting move for a couple of reasons.

First, Earl Wolff did not play one snap on defense on Sunday. The Eagles had a huge lead and played a ton of pass defense. They didn’t use Wolff in any package. He did get 19 snaps on STs so he was healthy enough to suit up and go block/tackle. Maybe I’m making something out of nothing, but you wonder if the Eagles are souring on Wolff. He is a solid player, but nothing special. And he’s been brittle.

Kovacs, 5-11, 205, is just on the practice squad so this move may simply be about taking a look at a young DB.

Malcolm Jenkins is a good starting FS. Nate Allen is a functional starter who has some good moments and some bad ones. I think the Eagles really hoped Wolff would push him this year, but that’s not come close to happening. The Eagles have Ed Reynolds on the practice squad, but he’s probably still not ready to do anything. Kovacs played in 9 games last year for the Dolphins. He was just a role player, but at least has been on the field in a game and has a couple of Training Camps under his belt. The Eagles can watch Kovacs in practice for a couple of weeks and decide if he might be worth putting on the roster. Or, as I said, maybe he’s just a young guy to check out.

I’m still curious about Wolff and his situation.

The other reason the Kovacs move was interesting…I thought about him while watching Michigan play on Saturday. He was a likable overachiever at Michigan, even to a Penn State fan like me. While watching the Wolverines struggle vs Rutgers, I suddenly wondered whatever happened to Kovacs. I meant to look it up, but was so caught up in the great day of college football that I never got around to that.

Today the Eagles helped me find out what had become of Kovacs. Nice of them.

There is still one opening on the practice squad to be filled.

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Good stuff from Chip here.

Talks about the defense.

Talks about the use of CBs in the 4th quarter.

Talks about Shady pulling himself out of the game (happens all the time…all RBs do it).

Always interesting.

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