Chip Kelly is bored out of his gourd.
He's currently at the NFL team meetings in Boca Raton, Florida, and seeing as he's not really there to do anything, he's keeping himself entertained daydreaming about coaching Colin Kaepernick in the fall.
Sports Illustrated's Greg Bedard interviewed the San Francisco 49ers head coach about his thoughts on Kaepernick and his status with the team.
After going on a weird tangent about the movie A Few Good Men (I have no idea), Kelly got to the Kaeper-chat. He says the team isn't even talking about cutting their quarterback before $11.9 million of Kaepernick's $14.3 million 2016 salary becomes guaranteed in April.
"It's not even in the conversation," Kelly said. "I don't think you cut talent."
Kelly expounded on this at length, praising Kaepernick's speed, passing and ability to work on the fly.
"Colin's a mobile quarterback. You can use him in a lot of different ways that you don't use a traditional NFL quarterback. You'r not going to use Colin the same way you use Tom Brady...if he's there on the fourth [of April], we'll be excited. I've expressed that to him."
"I've had very good conversations with him and I'd be excited to work with him, and that's what I've told him...We want him. I really would love to work with him."
Kelly said that Kaepernick got a bad wrap last year after playing hurt and being put on the injured reserve. Kaepernick went 2-6 through San Francisco's first eight games, with six touchdowns and five interceptions before being shut down for surgery on a torn labrumâall circumstantial facts that Kelly thinks are unfairly held against him:
"I think the biggest misconception that people don't realize with Kap is just injuries," Kelly said. "It's not like his skill set diminished. He went on injured reserve last year, so he was only available for eight games...I think this league has seen a healthy Kap, and he's been pretty impressive."
If you're playing the Chip Kelly drinking game at home, you probably can't read this, as you are either dead or floating naked in a retention pond. But if you are still conscious, note Kelly said "skill set," "mobile" and "traditional NFL quarterback." The rest of the interview is chock-full of other sports-isms, too, like:
"I mean, he can spin a football. He can really throw it."
Anyways, it's no longer in Kelly's hands to make these calls anymore (at least technically), but if he had his druthers, he seems all for keeping Kaepernick with the team as long as humanly possible.
So...get excited, Eagles fans!
Dan is on Twitter. He can't wait for Chip and Colin to re-reinvent the NFL offense.
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