Stephen A. Smith Says Eagles Players Told Him "Chip isn't comfortable with us"

Stephen A. Smith joined Mike & Mike this morning. Surprise surprise, Chip Kelly was the topic of discussion. (Ryan Ruocco, Booger McFarland, and Damien Woody were filling in, but none really got a word in during this segment.)

While Stephen A. was surprised this news happened this week as opposed to next, he says he saw it coming, and told a story about how he was stopped on the streets of Philadelphia by a group of Eagles players. “They got out of the car when they spotted me, came up to me, and started talking [about] Chip Kelly,” he said. “They said, ‘Stephen A, this is a different type of cat, he doesn’t seem to be somebody who is comfortable with us.”

Us, implying black people.

This is a variation of a similar story that Stephen A. Smith told this past March, when he said that Chip’s decisions (i.e. cutting DeSean Jackson, letting Jeremy Maclin leave in free agency, trading LeSean McCoy, and failing to hold Riley Cooper accountable) left a few brothers feeling uncomfortable.

I can’t speak for whether black players should or shouldn’t have felt this way about Chip. But, looking at it from afar, I think it’s more likely the opinion of Eagles players who told Mike Freeman he wasn’t a racist, but an emotionless dictator who saw all players as disposable commodities is more accurate. (This style has worked for Bill Belichick, but you need the cachet of winning for it to endure, and having an all-time great quarterback for longevity also helps.)

Last night, Jason Lisk wrote about what Chip Kelly should do from here: