Chip Kelly On J.J. Watt: “If You’ve Got To Play Him, You’re A Little Nervous”
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Genuflecting at the altar of J.J. Watt has become a weekly ritual for opposing head coaches scheduled to play the Houston Texans during Wednesday conference calls with the Houston media.
Chip Kelly, whose Philadelphia Eagles have the Texans at NRG Stadium Sunday, was no different.
“What does he have, three touchdowns now?” Kelly said Wednesday. “I mean, how many defensive linemen get a chance to score three in one career? He has three in one season.”
Everyone who’s risen to the level of NFL has an opinion worth respecting. But even in that rarefied air, Kelly’s praise is something special. Kelly, now in his second year with the Eagles, is renowned as one of the game’s best students and top innovators. Before taking the head job in Philadelphia, Kelly spent 2007 to 2012 with Oregon, where after becoming head coach in 2009 he was the fastest to 40 wins in FBS history. Earlier were stops at New Hampshire, Johns Hopkins and Columbia, the latter two where Kelly coached defense. One of the NFL’s only unmarried head coaches, Kelly eats, sleeps and breathes pigskin.
“If you’re a fan of football, you admire him,” Kelly said of Watt. “If you’ve got to play him, you get a little nervous.”
Watt is a challenge for every head coach every week, but will be for Kelly on Sunday especially. It will be Pro Bowl center Jason Kelce’s first game back from sports hernia surgery earlier this season. All Pro guard Evan Mathis is still hung up from an MCL. Veteran guard Todd Herremans partially tore his biceps last week and will reportedly try to play through it Sunday. All pointing to another productive day for maybe the NFL’s best defensive player, and headache for one of its top offensive masterminds.
“He does things that defensive linemen don’t do,” Kelly said. “For contacts with the ball, it’s the most we’ve seen and we’ve faced, and then the ability just to disrupt things if he doesn’t get to the quarterback just by batting balls down is really a unique set of skills that he has. It’s a credit to him. he’s that type of player. you’ve got to know where he is on every play, you’ve got to game plan for him on every play, and then hope you’re right in terms of how you’re trying to approach him and how you’re trying to block him.”
In what has become another MVP-type season, Watt has 7.0 sacks, 23 quarterback hits, 23 quarterback hurries, and seven batted passes, all most among 3-4 defensive ends. His plus-47.4 Pro Football Focus grade is far and away the best of any player regardless of position.
Or, as Kelly noted Wednesday, positions.
“He’s just so relentless in how he approaches it, and I think (Texans defensive coordinator) Romeo (Crennel) has done such a great job of — he’s never in the same spot. Sometimes if you know if the guy is the right three technique, you can kind of game plan things to do that, but when you turn the tape on, he lines up in so many different spots, and that’s hard.
“I don’t think people give him enough credit for the versatility that he has to be able to play that many positions, I think people can do that, but then one position’s better than another. I think he’s outstanding in everything he does. He’s got good hands, as good a hands as I’ve seen on a d-lineman in this league, and then he’s just so relentless. He really, truly isn’t — even if you’ve got a person on him and you’ve got people responsible for him, he still finds a way to get off of blocks, he does such a good job of escaping blocks and pursuing to the football, he’s as good a defensive player as we’ll face.”
After last week’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals, the Eagles are 5-2 heading into Sunday against the 4-4 Texans, fresh off snapping a three-game slide.
Hear Matt weekends on Sports Radio 610
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