Chip Kelly and his coaches didn't change anything in advance of the Eagles' demolition of the New York Giants Sunday night because he knew they didn't have to.
His team was winning, his team was good, and eventually everything was going to click.
Sunday night, everything clicked.
The Eagles played their most consistent, well-rounded game of the season in primetime, topping the Giants 27-0 in an all-around thrashing. Kelly was pleased with his team afterwards not just because of the result, but because of what it represented: consistency.
"The biggest difference from all the other games we played this year is that we executed in all phases; offensively, defensively, and special teams," Kelly said after the game. "It wasn't a spark here, or a spark there. I thought it was a consistent football game from start to finish.
"You look at the drive in the second half there, we throw the interception, turn it over. Our defense goes out on the field and doesn't give up any points. They stop them on the 3-yard line, and then the offense goes out on the field and has a 97-yard drive for a touchdown."
That 97-yard touchdown drive resulted in the only points of the second half, giving the Eagles a 27-0 lead with over a third of the game left to play.
Kelly liked what he saw from both facets of his offense on that drive, and all night, but he was especially pleased with the way the Eagles ran the ball. Kelly explained that the team didn't make drastic changes to the run game. It was just a result of hard work, and the offense's time came.
"I think it had been there before," Kelly explained. "I thought LeSean did a really good job of running tonight, really hit some things tonight, and you saw the LeSean that I think everybody knows he can be like. I thought we had some continuity; it's Lane's second game back, we had the same group that played before.
"So just a little consistency, stayed on blocks a little longer, and ran the ball a little bit harder, and blocked a little harder on the perimeter."
The defense excelled in the same way.
After two straight games with four sacks, the Eagles racked up an astounding eight against a Giants team that had allowed just seven through the first five games of the season.
Again, Kelly's refrain was simple - it was all going to come in due time.
Sunday night, it did.
"I think that they're just working," Kelly said of his defensive unit. "It's not a scheme deal. Our guys continue to work at their trade and they're getting better. [Linebacker] Connor Barwin, we saw it coming, and I know Billy talked about it a lot, and I know maybe some people didn't believe us. But we saw those guys getting better every day. We saw the way they trained, saw their approach, what we do from a training standpoint, and saw them getting better, better, and better and continuing to develop. We saw that it can work, we just had to be more consistent."
Still, while his team finally fired on all cylinders and looked like a team capable of taking on the world, Kelly had to temper expectations after the game. He knows he has a good team; when the players execute like they did Sunday night, it's a great team.
But it's still just one game at a time.
"It's something to build upon," the second-year head coach said. "We're happy with where we are. I guess the best way to say it is that we're pleased, we're not satisfied. There are still a lot of things we can do better, but we're pleased with our performance tonight."
