PHOENIX — Much has been made of Chip Kelly‘s trips to Foxborough when he was coaching at Oregon. He reportedly made three visits in all, and passed along to Bill Belichick the keys to his super fast-paced no-huddle, which included one-word play calls.
“I was interested to hear how he did it,” Belichick said, via the Boston Globe. “I would say he expanded it to a different level and it was very interesting to understand what he was doing. Certainly I’ve learned a lot from talking to Chip about his experiences with it and how he does it and his procedure and all that.”
The Patriots revved up their no-huddle and simplified their play-calling this past season. Belichick, though, downplayed Kelly’s influence on New England’s offense during a session with reporters at the owners meetings Tuesday.
“Chip’s a good friend , I have a lot of respect for Chip and we’ve had dialogue on a number of occasions but from a strategic or football standpoint it’s been very, very limited in both directions,” said Belichick. “But you know we talk football and stuff like that but as far as us running his offense or him running our offense or something like that, there couldn’t be anything further from the way it is.”
There is no question, however, that both coaches value the up-tempo game, and the league is now trending in that direction. The AFC coaches breakfast revealed that defending such an approach is on the minds of many across the NFL.
“I think that’s what you’re going to see most teams have so now defenses have to be able to get all their signals in,” said Titans head coach Mike Munchak. “They’re not going to be able to substitute the way they used to because teams aren’t going to allow that. I think there is now going to be more of an emphasis on how to best get the right people on the field, how to substitute, how to signal in.
“It definitely adds an element to the game of giving defenses more to think about, more to work on, maybe limiting their packages because they are too concerned about keeping it simple, so you’ve done your job as an offense because you have made them simpler.”
Munchak said that NFL teams are relying on college coaches and members of the staff with recent roots in college football to help try and solve this new wave — a wave that Kelly has been on for some time.
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