Chip Kelly can't run his offense because 49ers players too slow

Chip Kelly usually runs his offense at warp-speed, but he hasn't been able to implement his system with the 49ers because the players are too slow.

Everybody knows the book on Chip Kelly. During his tenures with the Oregon Ducks and Philadelphia Eagles, his offenses performed at warp-speed. Time of possession was completely tossed to the side in favor of tiring out the opposing defense with repetition. Plays were regularly run 20 second apart.

At the collegiate level, Kelly was a genius. Those principles worked at times in the NFL too, but not nearly as consistently. Getting professionals, who've had success playing one way, to abandon that for Kelly's program, was not easy. Also, the level of competition in the NFL is much higher than at a program recruiting the best players on the west coast.

Still, the 49ers hired Kelly this offseason with the hope that his tactics could help their roster, depleted of talent, compete.

Instead, the Niners sit at 1-6, and they're running plays at the slowest-rate in Kelly's NFL career.

They're still running plays faster than last season, taking 24.4 seconds per play opposed to 26.1 in 2015. But, that's nearly two seconds more than Kelly's last season in Philly, and four seconds more than his final season at Oregon.

Why? From Matt Maicco of CSNBayArea.com:

“I think that’s what fits with this group of guys we have on the offensive side of the ball,” Kelly said this week.

…

“I don’t think we’re playing fast right now,” Kelly said. “So if someone said, ‘How are you playing offensively?’ I don’t think we’re playing fast offensively. I think we’re just not going back (to huddle). We’re saving seven yards of run time for our offensive line because they don’t have to run back in the huddle, get a play called and then do it.

As a coach, you have to adjust your play-calling and game planing to the roster you have in place. Kelly is merely using the assets available to him in a way they can handle.

The offense still isn't huddling, but rather than running to the line and immediately snapping the ball, they often make the call before getting set:

“We’re just calling it at the line of scrimmage. So I think it’s a lot of what Denver used to do when Peyton (Manning) was there. But there’s a lot of times that we’re under 15 seconds when we’re snapping the ball and getting the play off. So we’re not playing fast and we’re not calling tempo-type plays in those situations. We’re just calling plays.”