Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians raised some eyebrows in Philadelphia when he called the read option a great "college offense" in anticipation of Sunday's game against the Eagles.
"I don't care what other people think," coach Chip Kelly said on Thanksgiving. "If I did, I would be valuing their opinion over my own."
Kelly also tried to clear up misconceptions about his read-option principles.
"I don't think it's an offense, I think its a play. And we don't run read option if you want to get really technical. We run a zone-read play every once and a while," Kelly said. "It's just like saying our offense is a power offense because we run the power play.
"I try to say this all the time. Here's our offense. We run the see-coast offense. If we see something, OK, and we like it, and we think it fits, we're going to run it. The Philadelphia Eagles run the see-coast offense. Let's run with that today, and we'll go from there."
Center Jason Kelce was more pointed about Arians' remarks.
"I think it's a great any-level offense, personally," Kelce said, via Philadelphia Magazine. "I think anybody who doesn't think it can be successful at this level is obviously mistaken."
It's hard to argue with Kelce. The Eagles rank in the top five in yards per carry and top five in yards per pass. They are in position to make the playoffs, despite a mediocre, albeit improving, defense.
Sunday's contest against Arizona will be a great test against a wildly talented Cardinals defense. It also will be a matchup of Kelly's supposedly "college" offense against Arians' approach, which has evolved in nearly 20 years of work in the NFL.
*We stuck a fork in three teams in the most recent "Around the League Podcast." *
