The Chip Kelly and Sam Hinkie eras in Philadelphia inspire obvious comparisons. Both took over moribund franchises in 2013, came in with new ideas and ultimately didn’t make it through their 3rd year on the job. Chip Kelly completed 94% of the season, Sam Hinkie 95%. In both cases I believed they had earned more time and while I think they both made mistakes, I appreciate that they both shot for the stars.
And that is perhaps the most clear comparison for me. Neither were content with being a mediocre or ‘good’ team. They were both trying to be great. Kelly took a 20-12 team one year removed from winning the NFC East and wreaked havoc on it. Hinkie took over a team that had made the 2nd round of the playoffs one year removed and turned it upside down. In both instances, the string of trades, drafts and general roster decisions made the Eagles and Sixers the most exciting offseason and trade deadline teams to follow. On the other hand, the approach engendered a lot of backlash and scrutiny from the media, most of it unpleasant.
Attacking ‘the media’ is something I’m loathe to do. Its low-hanging fruit and out of the Donald Trump playbook of pandering strategies. Everyone in the US hates ‘the media’ and attacking them is the easiest way to engender favourable support. But in this rare instance, I’ll lower myself and argue that ‘the media’ had something of a vendetta against Kelly and Hinkie. In the case of Hinkie, the stream of negative articles was understandable at least; the team was tanking and there was clearly no desire to win. With Kelly, I never quite understood why so many people were rooting for him to fail. Even after his first two seasons where he won 20 games, there were people still castigating his ‘gimmick offense’ and claiming that a College coach couldn’t possibly succeed in the Pros. Even as his offense was ranked 4th in scoring 2013 and 3rd in 2014. He still has a winning record after his nearly 3 years and he’s treated as a bust. The media narrative does not match the actual story and their inability to see what Hinkie was trying to do just shows their incompetence.
Both were forced out without seeing their plans through. Kelly was quiet but Hinkie’s 13-page resignation letter has become the stuff of legend to those who appreciated what he did. Aside from ‘the media’ discussion, I’m going to analyse their tenures in the context of the manifesto Hinkie wrote, using his own sub-headings and giving them a point.
Thinking about thinking
Process over results, process over results, process over results. The guiding tenet of making decisions. Was the logic (process) sound even though the results haven’t worked out? “To do this requires you to divorce process from outcome.” Philadelphia has been cursed with bad things happening despite the logical thought behind it, and Hinkie and Kelly claimed to adhere to this doctrine. Without going through every one of their decisions, you can point to examples like drafting Joel Embiid and trading for Sam Bradford to illustrate the argument in favour of this. I’ll never fault either of these decisions because they were both done with the idea of taking a risk to transform a good team, to make it great. While neither are a success at the moment, it will take at least another year to determine whether they are abject failures.
The two examples that stray from this, in my view, were paying DeMarco Murray and drafting Jahlil Okafor. With Murray, ALL conventional wisdom, studies and research tells you not to overpay free agent running backs coming off career years. Shockingly, the deal was terrible and Murray has already been shipped off. The move was shortsighted, didn’t appreciate Kelly’s own strengths as a coach and never made sense to me at any point during the season. I couldn’t stand watching him play, running for 3 yards a carry.
Similarly, I haven’t been able to enjoy Okafor for one second this year. He doesn’t fit with the team, he doesn’t fit in the modern NBA and and there were plenty of other players he could have taken at number 3 in the draft. Best Player Available is great but this is one of the few examples where it just didn’t make sense. Commentators and pundits will point to these moves as the downfall of their tenures but what will they say if Bradford and Embiid start playing up to their potential? For me, they deserved one more year each and the owners’ trigger happy decisions weren’t made with thoughts about the process.
Hinkie – 1
Kelly – 1
The importance of intellectual humility
I think this is the big category where Kelly falls down, at least from everything fans with no inside knowledge have about the situation. He was constantly criticised towards the end of his tenure for failing to adapt, sticking to his ‘system’ over everything else and adopting a ‘my way or the high way’ approach to coaching. Those who didn’t buy in were out of the door with little recourse and a refusal to adjust for specific teams he was going up against. Going into a theoretical Year 4, I was hopeful he would learn from these mistakes and build them into his own system but his firing suggests that this may not have been the impression he gave ownership.
A lot harder to evaluate Hinkie in this respect, he certainly didn’t kick up a huge fuss when the likes of Colangelo and Mike D’Antoni were brought in as ‘help’. Reluctance to cut players like Isiah Canaan and signing Kendall Marshall over Ish Smith seemed to suggest he stuck with his own agenda in face of mounting evidence to the contrary.
Hinkie – 0.5
Kelly – 0
The necessity of innovation
Perhaps this area best defines the tenures of both Kelly and Hinkie. “You have to be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time“. Reading about Kelly’s success at Oregon prior to his first year at the Eagles, I remember being struck by his emphasis on Sports Science and embrace of innovative training methods. In one such example that became apparent in Year 2, he was criticised by CB Cary Williams for making the team practice on Saturdays, the day before the game, contrary to what the rest of the league does. Apparently this decision was based on years of research on marathon runners, track and field athletes, etc who performed better with a day before run-through rather than complete rest. Personalised smoothies have become something of a joke to beat him over the head with, but this is exactly where the sports world will be in a few years time. Wearables like Fitbit, customised eating plans for different positions and tailored training will takeover the NBA landscape by 2020 and it is Kelly who was one of the earliest pioneers of such innovation. Rather than be viewed favourably, this different methodological approach was used to highlight his disconnect between college and the professional leagues. I fully believe he’ll be vindicated in short order in this respect.
Hinkie spent his whole tenure being misunderstood and will never get to reap the treasure trove of draft picks and young talent he assembled. He was certainly wiling to fail, brining in D-League players to unearth any potential gems and similarly placed emphasis on Sports Science, pre-resting players who were tired but not injured in order to prevent injuries from occurring. An extremely forward-looking approach.
Hinkie – 1
Kelly – 1
The longest view in the room
The NFL seems like a sport where it’s much harder to have a long view than the NBA. Perhaps the 16 game season, relative parity and unpredicatability make it harder for fans to sit back and think about their team 3-4 years down the line. And yet, it’s obvious to those who understand the long view that the teams who frequently deploy such strategies are the ones who have the most success. The New England Patriots who love trading down in the draft to get more picks the following year(s) are the first example that springs to mind. The Green Bay Packers, who prefer to nurture their own talent rather than jump into the free agency pool and the Baltimore Ravens who let their players seek new pastures rather than overpay, using the compensatory picks to replenish (ignoring the Joe Flacco contract here). 3 teams who have all won Super Bowls in the last 6 years. Offseason winners like the ‘Dream Team’ Eagles and the every year Miami Dolphins haven’t won a playoff game in years. It’s hard to evaluate Kelly on this one, he gave up a 4th round pick to the Lions in his one draft as GM in order to pick up a 3rd the following year. Loved it. But despite what he says, he definitely tried to give up every asset the franchise had for Marcus Mariota, which smacks of short-termism and is something I will address in a coming post re: Carson Wentz.
Hinkie lived 3 years from now.
Hinkie – 1
Kelly – 0.5
A contrarian mindset
Being a contrarian is only good if you’re also correct. Otherwise you look like an idiot. Looking around the NBA and NFL, both leagues are full of risk-averse, herd mentalities, which personally infuriate me. Being a Rams fan, for example, must be incredibly frustrating, consistently going 7-9 with Jeff Fisher, or the Tennessee Titans who hired Mike Munchak as their Head Coach for no apparent reason. Every year, the recycle coaches get drawn out and re-appointed to some other franchise hoping that it’ll work this time! Don’t get my wrong, I still hate the Doug Pederson HC pick but at least it wasn’t Romeo Crenell, Ken Whisenhunt or another guy who is little more than a warm corpse. If my team is rubbish, which they inevitably tend to be, I’d rather they do anything than be mediocre and consensus. I have extremely low expectations for the Eagles in 2016 but if they told me they were playing 2 QBs at the same time, I’d be all in. Try new things for goodness sake.
Kelly and Hinkie were staunch contrarians and I loved every second of it and the arguments it spawned. I wished Kelly had been a bit more reckless with his 4th down decisions but I was interested in his acquire injured players strategy at low costs and make them health strategy.
Hinkie also embodied many of these qualities and strategies. That being said, he leaves me in a difficult position because perhaps his most contrarian strategy, knowingly or unknowingly, was drafting 3 Centers in 3 straight drafts, when all around us we’re learning that big men are losing value. How do I judge someone who is being contrarian but with which I don’t believe is correct? Perhaps we’ll only know when the GS Warriors run is over but for now, I’ll never be on board with drafting big men like Okafor or paying running backs.
Hinkie – 0.5
Kelly – 1
A tolerance of uncertainty
I’m happy to pass through this category quickly, drafting Joel Embiid and trading for Sam Bradford both demonstrate their appetite for uncertainty.
Hinkie – 1
Kelly – 1
Be long science
Again, I’ve covered the science element of their strategic directions. To me, it’s all about looking for the next big thing that will change the sport. Somehow we’re still having an analytics debate across the sports spectrum but good teams should accept this and move on to the next thing. Sports science to be that thing for me, injury prevention is the next way teams can get an advantage. I’m sure most teams are doing this already but I’d be investing heavily on all types of biometric testing, wearable devices, fitness technology, connected clothing, whatever it takes to keep my players healthier than others. Psychological testing too is probably an area of interest, though I’m slightly more sceptical on this one. But even as teams invest in this, what is the next advantage that we can look at that no one is even talking about right now? I’m fairly certain Kelly and Hinkie ran their organisations in this way.
Hinkie – 1
Kelly – 1
A healthy respect for tradition
Hinkie freely admits that this runs contrary to what he has previously said about innovation, disruption and being a contrarian but I think what he is saying is to make sure to hold on to parts of tradition that have proved themselves to be correct over time. Perhaps that is behind his drafting Okafor decision, which would argue that his post scoring will open up the floor for everyone else. Sure 3 pointers are worth more and becoming more efficient but really, a post-up play/lay-ups are the highest percentage chance to score points in the NBA? I imagine that would be the argument of the opposing council in the defence for drafting Okafor.
I frankly don’t care too much about this category and will ignore it and move on.
A reverence for disruption
For me, this involves avoiding aspects of the game that have proven to be finished as theories or methodologies. Paying RBs or drafting them highly is the example I would point to here as a prime example of something that should be conventional wisdom by now, although some franchises ignore it and act like they’re still in the Dark Ages. Just as you shouldn’t be buying beepers, landline phones, phone books, shares in BlackBerry because the better smartphones came along, you should not over value running backs in the modern NFL. This deliciously makes the Cowboys drafting Ezekiel Elliot at no4 a foolish mistake which will make me happy for year to come. Anyway, overpaying Murray was a colossal mistake.
Hinkie – 1
Kelly – 0.5
Final Scores
Hinkie – 7/8
Kelly – 6/8
2000 words later and what exactly was the point of this exercise? It is interesting to me as someone who values and believed in the work that both guys did while in Philadelphia as a future measuring stick for other coaches and GMs who come through the city. In the future, I imagine we’ll have some who languish in the 2-3 out of 8 range, guys like Doug Collins who’s tenure I will continue to look back on with growing anger over and over. Using Hinkie’s Guide to measure Hinkie’s performance is obviously something of a flawed concept but given he represents the ideals of the type of people I want running my sports teams, and that he himself couldn’t get 8/8 shows there is value in it to me at least.
I’ll never approve of the Murray or Okafor decisions but they were perhaps the most consensus and un-Kelly and un-Hinkie decisions of their 3 years. Thinking differently than the mainstream got them run out of town. If Hinkie had drafted MCW (and kept him), Aaron Gordon and Okafor (minus the legal problems), I firmly believe he would still have a job here, despite the team being worse off. Similarly, if Kelly had kept Foles, paid a lot for Maclin, overpaid Murray and gone 7-9, I also think this risk-averse approach would have got him another year. This is what frustrates me most about the situation the Eagles and the Sixers are in now, with the paragons of consensus mediocrity in Bryan Colangelo and Doug Pederson.
Written By An Englishman 