Matt Barkley to Philadelphia

When it comes to the NFL draft anything can happen.

Matt Barkley's slide in the draft is now in the past. The rhyme or reason doesn't really matter at this point. Barkley has a new home in Philly...with former Oregon coach Chip Kelly.

Reading the reactions in the obvious places has made me chuckle. Anything from this is a bad for Barkley because he doesn't fit into Kelly's system to what was Kelly thinking.

Rubbish!

Kelly explains the pick...

"To play at the level of college football that we were it or to play in the NFL, you need to have a quarterback that’s accurate and can deliver the football, and protect it, not turn it over, and do all those things," Kelly said. "If the fact that they have the ability to run, I believe that’s an added bonus. But that’s not the precursor to what we do. We’ve said it since day one. If anyone asked me when I was at Oregon recruiting, I wanted a quarterback that has the ability to run, I don’t want a running back that can throw."

I love that last line and I think it explains that Kelly is not looking to replicate what he had at UO. He is going to take pieces of of that offense and adapt it to the NFL.

The league is changing.

It is clear that the dual threat QB is the latest trend but progressive coaches like Kelly had a career before Orgeon...this isn't his first Rodeo.

Kelly is not going to run the same scheme that he did at UO. That would get his QB killed, as NFL defenses are much better at picking up those reads and much faster in chasing those players down.

Nobody really knows exactly what offense that Kelly will run but I would guess it will be up tempo...something similar to what he ran at New Hampshire. Kelly added the running QB wrinkle when he got to UO. He is not going to do that in Philly. The QB will pass the RB will run but the tempo will be similar to what we saw at UO. Barkley has good mobility in the pocket but he is not going to be the next Randall Cunningham.

I actually think this is a great place for Barkley. Philly will toughen him up with those nutty fans. It's 3000 miles from home and he is with a coach who might actually coach him out of the bad decisions he made at USC.

Going to Philly looks like it is already having an affect...

"You visualize all the picks that went in front of you, especially the other quarterbacks," Barkley told Scott Wolf of the Los Angeles Daily News. "I’m going to remember this weekend for a long time and so are the teams that didn’t draft me."

If his draft slide doesn't motivate him then nothing will...

FIGHT ON!