Chip Kelly's plans for Eagles: Who really knows?

EVERYBODY KNOWS what Chip Kelly plans to do.

He will install a version of the read-option offense that closely mirrors the attack that vaulted his Oregon teams into the national-championship conversation.

He will convert the Eagles' 4-3 defense, for which they have signed and drafted players for decades, into a 3-4 scheme.

Except, nobody knows either of these things.

Kelly has made a few moves that indicate his leanings toward a typical read option, if there is a typical read option. He has sent signals that he will use a version of a three-lineman, four-linebacker defense.

That's all he has done.

He has committed to nothing.

Why? Because Kelly himself does not know what he has assembled. He cannot.

Neither he, nor anyone else, will know for a long, long time; probably not until training camp convenes in July. Maybe not until the season opener, Sept. 8.

By then, Kelly might have an idea whether Michael Vick can run the read option, but Kelly will not know for sure. There will have been three passing camps and innumerable workouts for Vick at the Eagles' practice facility. That might determine if Vick can digest the tenets and language of the new scheme, at least the fourth of Vick's NFL career.

It cannot determine if Vick can whittle his glacial time from snap to release to 1.5 seconds, the optimal number in Kelly's mind. It is the time that Kelly believes it takes a defensive lineman to reach the quarterback if minimally impeded.

Vick, with one of the quickest releases in football history, usually takes about twice as long.

That's because Vick seldom reads the defense correctly; seldom looks the right way right away. When he does read the defense, Vick often cannot see over the line or position himself to find the correct passing lane, the dual bases of Drew Brees' brilliance.

Brees, like Vick, is 6 feet tall.

Brees, unlike Vick, runs his offense like a point guard. Brees, unlike Vick, limits his exposure to hits.

Can Kelly design a scheme that uses Vick's mobility, protects Vick and allows for a measure of quarterback protection?

The "pistol" offense San Francisco used with Colin Kaepernick to reach the Super Bowl got plenty of attention, but the 49ers themselves insisted that the "pistol" was more a formation than a foundation; that they borrowed pieces of it and only intermittently ran it, and thereby limited exposure to Kaepernick.

(Unlike what the Redskins did with Robert Griffin III, who, battered, then shattered, probably will never be the same player.)

Also, at 6-4 and 230 pounds, Kaepernick is built like a tight end; Vick, speciously listed at 215, is built like a wide receiver and has suffered rib injuries the past three seasons.

Furthermore, Kaepernick is 2 years removed from running a remarkable 4.53-second 40-yard dash at the NFL draft combine, and, once up to speed, he strides like Usain Bolt.

Vick legendarily ran a 4.33 . . . 12 years ago.

Vick's poor decisions in a more conventional offense cost him at least $5 million in salary this season (he was due more than $15 million), and helped cost Andy Reid the job that Chip Kelly got.

Can Vick be expected to make faster decisions in a new attack and remain healthy? Even Kelly cannot know.

Similarly, the retention of Nick Foles indicates . . . nothing. The Patriots adapted facets of Kelly's offense for Tom Brady, himself immobile, fragile, invaluable and reconstructed.

So, yes, with a good enough line, Foles could make it work. Assuming he ever throws a deep out that doesn't have a pot of gold at its end.

If restructuring Vick's deal implied that Kelly plans to adapt his read-option attack, then what do the releases of Mike Patterson and Cullen Jenkins imply?

That a 3-4 is inevitable?

Not necessarily.

It implies only that, in the view of Kelly and defensive coordinator Bill Davis, neither player is good enough to play defensive tackle, or defensive end, or defensive driver, for that matter.

Patterson, despite a heroic story, missed most of 2012 healing from brain surgery.

Jenkins, despite enormous effort, continued to reveal the limitations that led the Packers to let him go to Philadelphia via free agency after 2010.

At 6-4 and 298 pounds, defensive tackle Fletcher Cox, the defense's best player as a rookie, is at least 20 pounds shy of nose-guard heft . . . though he could be a valuable end in a 3-4.

At 6-3, 270, Trent Cole, 30, is too light to be a 3-4 end and is too heavy and too old to switch to linebacker. He also is the most talented defender on the roster.

Still, coupled with the phillymag.com report last week that defensive end Brandon Graham hopes to lose 15 pounds and expects to move back to linebacker, which he played in high school, the 3-4 theory gains gravity.

So, a 3-4 might be an option.

But so might a 4-3.

Or, both.

You cannot know.

Right now, neither can Kelly.