Kelly Says Eagles Can Move Faster

Most head coaches would be thrilled with the performance of a offense that scored 33 points and 443 total yards of offense.

(Listen to Jimmy Kempski of Philly.com talk Eagles vs Skins)

Not Chip Kelly, at least not after the Philadelphia Eagles opened the season with a 33-27 win over Robert Griffin III and the Washington Redskins on Monday.

"No, I felt like it was slow, to be honest with you," Kelly explained about the teams tempo on Monday night.  "I'm not joking.  We’ve got to do a better job.  We left the ball on the ground too much.  We didn't get the ball to the officials.  We could have sped things up from a process between plays.  That's something we need to continue to work on."

While they moved the ball with ease in the first half of the game and early in the third quarter en route to a 33-7 lead at one point, it seemed like the team took their foot off the gas and allowed the Redskins to get back in the game.

"They're capable of coming back everywhere," Kelly said about teams abilities to get back in games.  "It's got nothing to do with the league you're playing in.  It's how do you work the clock.  We’ve got to practice it a little bit more.  We do a lot of things at such a rapid tempo, I think our guys understand tempo and do that pretty good.  We also have to learn how to practice playing it the other way really from a mindset standpoint, where we do everything 90 miles an hour, now you’ve got to go back to driving through the city streets.  You need to kind of settle down and make sure you can still negotiate the turns."

The fact that the Eagles left Washington with a hard-fought win was more impressive considering they were on-the-road, on Monday night, against the defending NFC East champs.

"It was a good feeling,' Kelly admitted.  "I think any time you can start off like we did and be successful in the first game, I think people were generally excited about that.  But it's a, what have you done for me lately league.  By the time we get back on the field tomorrow, no one is talking about what went on last Monday."

The Eagles will be on a short week, but so too will their next opponent; the San Diego Chargers - who suffered a heart-breaking loss on Monday night to the Houston Texans.  While the Eagles have a short week to prepare, so do the Chargers, but San Diego will have to travel across the country to play a 1pm game.

"We know every game is the ultimate importance for us," Kelly said about this week's game.  "There's no way you can say, Hey, we got another game next Thursday, let's focus and concentrate on that.  I think everybody's attention is on getting ready to play San Diego.  That's what this thing is all about."

Scoring was the weakness of the Eagles offense last season, they averaged just 17 points per game. The expectations were higher this year when the Eagles hired to take over for Andy Reid, so much so that a questionable defense was almost accepted.

On Monday night, the defense held up their end of the deal.

"I think our defense is still growing and we've said that since day one when we got here," Kelly said.  "We were going from a wide nine to a 3‑4, where that eventually stops it depends on our coaches doing a really good job, which I think we are doing, of assessing our players and trying to put them in situations where they can make plays.

Specifically, Kelly said Philadelphia can continue to cut out mistakes. .

"We've played one full game," Kelly stated.  "I was pleased again with our effort.  We still made some mistakes.  But I think each day you see our defense getting better and better and better."