Dom Capers: Eagles made good call on Bill Davis

EAGLES FANS were surprised when new coach Chip Kelly hired Bill Davis as his defensive coordinator last week, and not just because Davis had been interviewed nearly 2 weeks earlier. In 4 years as a coordinator - 2 years at San Francisco followed by 2 in Arizona - Davis' teams finished 32nd, 26th, 20th and 29th in NFL defense.

Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers was not surprised. Capers was d-coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1992, when Davis got his first NFL job there, as a quality control assistant. He ended up liking Davis enough to bring him along as outside linebackers coach when Capers left to become the first head coach of the expansion Carolina Panthers in 1995. Davis stayed through 1998, when Capers was dismissed.

"I'm not surprised at all," Capers said Tuesday evening. "He'll certainly gain the confidence of the players. He's very competent, knows what he's talking about."

Capers, a head coach in Carolina and Houston, an assistant in New Orleans, Jacksonville, Miami and New England, in addition to Pittsburgh and Green Bay, said unit rankings don't always tell the story for a coordinator, who isn't picking the personnel or sometimes even the scheme.

"There's a lot of variables that go into those things. You control some, some you don't control," Capers said. "He probably gained a lot of knowledge, the places he's been. When Mike McCarthy was hired here at Green Bay [as head coach in 2006], the year before, he was offensive coordinator at San Francisco and they ranked [last in the NFL] in offense. I think probably people here were surprised. But you can look at the success he's had, his [74-38] record," and his win in Super Bowl XLV.

Capers liked Davis right away, he recalled. Davis called Capers "a big part of my upbringing" when Davis met with reporters at NovaCare Monday.

"He was very detailed, very organized, bright guy, good people skills," Capers said. "Just a really good guy. You really enjoyed working with him."

In Carolina, Capers noted, both of Davis' starting outside linebackers, Kevin Greene and Lamar Lathon, made the Pro Bowl in 1996.

"He's a guy that's not going to be too up and down," Capers said. "You're going to get a level guy that won't be affected too much by the highs and lows, and you're getting an experienced guy."

Kelly, who has never coached in the NFL, said Monday he made a point of choosing offensive, defensive and special-teams coordinators with extensive NFL experience.

"Nobody can argue with what Chip Kelly has done" at Oregon, Capers said. "Having experienced coordinators gives him a good sounding board . . . Billy certainly understands the 3-4 defense."

Michael Vick told the ESPN Radio "Mike and Mike in the Morning" show he sees himself running a lot in Chip Kelly's Eagles offense, even though Kelly hasn't articulated how that offense will work yet.

"In 2006, I ran for 1,000 yards - and it wasn't hard," Vick said. "The only thing you have to do is train. I feel like I can still do that. To what level, I don't know, but I feel like I can do it at a high level."

The 2006 Falcons went 7-9 with Vick running for 1,039 yards. That was the only season in which Vick has played 16 games.

Even if Vick running a lot somehow were to be regarded as a positive offensive development, as we all know, he turns 33 in June and was getting chased down from behind by defensive linemen in 2012, leaving aside the six games he missed with a concussion. But Vick, who has missed 13 games in 3 years as the Eagles' starter, doesn't see injury as any more of an obstacle than aging.

"You have to be very cautious and meticulous about what you're doing on the field, but not to the point where it takes away from your game. Once you start trying not to get hurt, that's when you get hurt," Vick said. "I think what I have to do is just go out and play lights-out football, and not worry about getting hurt. I think over the last 2 years, I was trying to protect myself, trying to be sure that I was out on the football field with my teammates, just putting too much effort into not being injured. When you do that, it slows you down just half a second. I think when you're able to just go out and say, 'Today I'm going to give it everything I've got and leave it all out on the field,' that's when you have the most success."

Vick alluded to "a whole array of things that brought me back" to the Eagles with a reworked contract that figures to make him at least $7.5 million this season. The team saved around $9.8 million in 2013 cap space, but in 2014, the $3.5 million signing bonus, due this April, apparently becomes "dead money."

Toward the end of last season, Phillymag.com's Tim McManus asked Vick about Chip Kelly, and Vick replied, "You mean the Notre Dame coach?" On "Mike and Mike," though, Vick said: "I've watched [Kelly's offense] for a long time. And I've watched Oregon have success. I know that doesn't mean it's going to correlate directly to the NFL. I just felt change was good, and I'm going to take my chances."

Vick said he is "motivated to be one of the elite quarterbacks in the league again," but "it won't happen overnight."

He said he thinks he can play "another 4 or 5 years."

Eagles offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur was Cleveland's head coach for two seasons. The first year, his offseason was killed by the lockout. His second year, it was apparent from the time the team was sold in the summer that Shurmur and general manager Tom Heckert were lame ducks. "I would say my tenure there was a little less than traditional," Shurmur observed . . . New offensive-line coach Jeff Stoutland said he thinks Howard Mudd's "jump set" approach is a good tool to have in the arsenal, but not to use in every situation.