Chip Kelly's best catch

CHIP KELLY has many deserving lieutenants, but none deserves commendation like receivers coach Bob Bicknell.

If things go well in 2015, none will earn his money more than the man they call "Bick."

For the third consecutive season Bicknell is charged with reconstructing a receiving corps with essentially no predictable pieces.

No problem. The last two seasons the Eagles broke the team record for passing yardage, a feat that made Bick a candidate for the 49ers' offensive coordinator's job (a toxic post Bicknell declined).

Coaching is in Bick's blood.

"You just have to be ready to coach whoever shows up," said Jack Bicknell, Bob's father.

Jack coached at Maine and Boston College, then in Europe, for more than 30 years. Jack Jr. was Doug Flutie's center on the Hail Mary play to Gerard Phelan; Bob played tight end a few years later.

Jack Jr., now with the Miami Dolphins, has coached NFL offensive linemen since 2009. Bob, seven years younger, spent eight years in Europe before a season at Temple in 2006 led to coaching the Kansas City Chiefs' offensive line, then tight ends through 2009, then the Bills' tight end and receivers from 2010-12, before landing in Philadelphia.

There's a picture on the wall of Jack Sr.'s study at his home in Meredith, N.H.: 4-year-old Bob, underfoot at BC practices, where Jack coached running backs before he got the head coaching job at Maine.

Neither brother has held a job outside of football. Bob's first job as a kid was holding his father's headset cords on the sideline at games. Bob's first job as an adult was as an assistant at Boston University.

"When Bob told me he wanted to coach, I asked, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' " Jack Sr. said from his home last week. " 'It's a tough life.' He said, 'Well, you've been happy all your life.'

"I thought that was a pretty good answer."

"It's the only life I've ever known," Bob said. "There never was anything else. I never knew there was anything else."

As a kid, Bob listened on an extension in another room when his father called recruits. Bob overheard his father's assistants moaning about a given team's lack of talent.

"I had assistants who would say, 'Oh, how can we win with these guys?' " Jack Sr. said. "And I would tell them, 'We're going to win with these guys.'

"That's how Bob thinks."

It's a healthy mindset, considering his situations with the Eagles.

In 2013, Bob Bicknell first had to learn Chip Kelly's offense. "It took a couple of days," he said.

Bicknell, who lost top receiver Jeremy Maclin to a season-ending injury at the start of training camp, had to teach Kelly's offense to undisciplined veteran DeSean Jackson, little-used Riley Cooper and aging slot receiver Jason Avant, all lifelong Eagles steeped in West Coast dogma. Cooper and Jackson had career years.

Last season, after Kelly cut Jackson and Avant, Bicknell had to educate Maclin and second-round pick Jordan Matthews. Maclin had a career year. Matthews played the slot and had the best rookie season of any Eagle.

Then the Eagles lost Maclin, one of the top five receivers in team history, to free agency.

"Bob really liked [Maclin]," Jack Sr. said. "That one hurt him."

The pain was relieved, to a degree, when the Birds used their first-round pick on Nelson Agholor, whose talent and stability recalls Maclin.

"Tough, hard-working. He's exactly what we thought he'd be," Bicknell said of Agholor after six noncontact practices. "I'm not shocked. He's got excellent speed. He's got excellent quickness. He's got a lot of things to learn, but he knows that. The beautiful thing is that maturity."

Agholor joins a suspect receiving corps. Cooper last season set a career high with 55 catches but his yards per catch dipped almost 40 percent, to 10.5 yards, and his TD total went from eight to three. Matthews' production tailed off late in his rookie season. Third-round pick Josh Huff, slowed by injury and embattled all season, caught just eight passes. The Eagles added 30-year-old free agent Miles Austin, who is three years removed from his last effective season, as a Cowboy.

It might be tough to break any passing records this season. Maybe "Bick" can get some advice from his father and brother next month.

The Bicknell clan annually retreats to Jack Sr.'s retirement home in New Hampshire, situated on Lake Waukewan, for the month of July. Counting Bob's sister Wendy and all of the grandkids - Bob and his wife, Stacey, have two daughters - there will be 17 people (and four dogs) at the home of Jack Sr. and Lois, married for 55 years. They visited the lake every one of those years before settling there in retirement.

"It'll be 29 straight days of golf," Jack Sr. said - at least, for his boys.

He will meet the 6 a.m. tee time when his 77-year-old bones allow. Bob will win most days. Really, very little football talk happens - at least, not from Bob.

"The one guy, he calls me whenever anything happens," Jack Sr. said of his namesake. "The other guy, I never hear from. I didn't even know about the San Francisco job until it was over."

A coordinator's job is the next logical step, Bob acknowledged, but he likes being part of the NFL's new big thing with Kelly.

"It's great to have something like that happen," Bob said, "but I just wanted to be with the Eagles."

Maybe he does now, with Jackson removed from the equation. Jackson blew up at Bicknell during a 2013 game in Minnesota after Jackson made a feeble attempt to break up an interception. The pair never fully explained their sideline altercation.

Last week, Bicknell professed, "I loved every one" of the receivers he has coached in Philadelphia.

Right. Well, sometimes love hurts. Jackson is gone. Bicknell remains, to the delight of offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur.

"Bob's an outstanding teacher," Shurmur said. "The guys are in there learning it in the way they need to come out here and play."

"Bick" worked his magic once, then did it again. Can he make it three times in a row? There's a good chance.

After all, it's in the blood.

On Twitter: @inkstainedretch

Blog: ph.ly/DNL