Chip Kelly doesn’t blame LeSean McCoy for being mad about how his trade to from the Philadelphia Eagles to the Buffalo Bills was handled.
Speaking with reporters on Thursday, via Dave Zangaro of CSNPhilly.com, Kelly made it clear he understands why McCoy has been so vocally mad while stopping short of taking responsibility for the mistake.
Kelly said he was under the impression that McCoy’s trade to Buffalo wasn’t going to be initiated until the next morning, and so he never reached out to the player to let him know about it.
“It wasn’t handled the right way with LeSean and I understand why he’s not happy about it. And he should not be happy about it. That’s why I would apologize for that. Because it didn’t happen the right way. But from our standpoint, we thought the trade wasn’t going to be initiated until the next morning so there was no phone call to be made until the league approves the trade.”
However, the trade did get initiated, and Kelly maintains he didn’t know it had even gone through until he heard about it while driving to an event the next morning.
He also maintains the trade was strictly about money, stating that McCoy’s agent told the Eagles his client would not be taking a pay cut.
Of course, there has been bad blood between the coach and former player since he was shipped off. McCoy famously told reporters Kelly “got rid of all the good black players” and even now has said he will not shake his coach’s hand on Sunday when the Bills take on the Eagles.
It’s rather interesting that such a huge deal made, in Kelly’s first year as the team’s general manager, somehow was made without his knowledge. Perhaps this is why McCoy continues to stick to his guns about keeping his anger kindled towards his former head coach, rather than letting it go.