Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young made an appearance on NFL Live shortly after the news got out that Chip Kelly was hired to be the San Francisco 49ers head coach. Young makes regular appearances on Bay Area sports talk radio, so you know he'd have a thought or two about Chip Kelly. He hit on two topics that are frequently brought up with regard to Kelly:
"I like Chip Kelly. Chip Kelly is a guy I want in the league," Young said. "...I like what he does holistically for the players, what he's thinking about bringing the game forward. There's a lot of things that I like offensively. The fact that he's in San Francisco? Great."
Kelly is an incredibly unique football mind. There is of course talk that defenses caught up with his schemes, but I think it is worth another chance. Maybe it ends up flaming out miserably, but you might as well take the big swing, right? I think Hue Jackson had some potential, and could do good things in Cleveland. Other than that, it was hard to get too excited about the other names. With Kelly, it might be great, it might be disastrous, but at least we get to see what happens.
"The thing I worry about most is Chip Kelly is a very strong personality. Trent Baalke, the general manager, gives nothing to the coach. That was a lot of the problem he had with Jim Harbaugh. He has a very strong personality. How does that get worked out?"
I discussed the Trent Baalke personality issues earlier in my discussion of Tom Gamble. I think Gamble can very much serve as a buffer between these two. Maybe it doesn't work out, I don't know. But again, I think it is worth rolling the dice. Maybe you crap out, maybe you hit big. As they say, you can't win big if you don't bet big!