Where's the love for Chip Kelly?

THE OTHER day on its "Philly Sports Talk,'' Comcast SportsNet ran a poll asking, "In which coach/manager do you have the most faith?''

That Chip Kelly finished dead last amid a season in which he might finish with a losing record for the first time in his head-coaching career is a bit surprising, even in our uniquely mercurial environment.

It is beyond perplexing, though, to see his approval rating more than doubled by Sixers head coach Brett Brown, whose winless team has turned the ball over more than 50 times in the last two games. And nearly doubled by 64-year-old Pete Mackanin, who had never managed a major league game without "interim" attached to his title until the last week of this season.

Brown's 36.9 percent of 736 votes cast (272) was rivaled only by the 29 percent given to Mackanin, whose team lost 99 games last season (although not all on his watch) - and likely will approach or even surpass that loss total next season.

Even the iron-jawed Dave Hakstol, whose team has yet to display any positive effects from the "culture" general manager Ron Hextall hired him to instill, scored higher than Kelly - despite facing his immediate horizon with a roster pockmarked by overpaid and underperforming, and thus immovable, veterans.

Like Kelly, Brown is a first-time professional head coach, at least in North America. Like Kelly, he has seen several of his better players leave, just not of his call. Because such Sam Hinkie moves have forced continued revamps and rebuilds, Brown bathes more in our collective sympathy than he does vitriol. It's a nice gig if you can handle nights such as Wednesday, when the Sixers turned the ball over 31 times, and it's pretty much unheard of in these parts.

And it's not about approval. Three seasons into a process that still does not hint of a horizon, the potential of long-range and long-term success in Hinkie's machinations splits the populace right down the middle between believers and skeptics. Beyond sympathy, Brown has built his support, however, through honest dialogue with the public, a dialogue that has been, at best, strained when it comes to the football coach.

Yes, the daily poll is hardly a trend, and a one-sided victory over Tampa Bay on Sunday likely will move the numbers, at least a bit. But the poll does indicate at the very least, unrest, and it does suggest Kelly will not be provided the latitude that Brown has received, or that Mackanin and Hackstol likely will get. And that's a change from Kelly's first season here, and at a level his predecessor didn't experience until he had been here almost a decade.

Then again, Andy Reid's first season here of 5-11 - in which he eased rookie quarterback Donovan McNabb into the starter's role toward the latter part of the season - flipped upside the following year. That began a string of five seasons in which the Eagles won from 11 to 13 games, culminating in that 2004 Super Bowl run.

Reid had his critics, triggered by a continuum of aborted playoff runs. Perhaps it also should have been instructive to Kelly that his predecessor ultimately was undone by seizing too much power, spreading himself too thin. Certainly, that is the current narrative about Kelly in just Year 3, as the evidence against him continues to pile up.

Approaching the Eagles' 10th game, the injury-prone quarterback he traded for is sidelined and the injury-prone linebacker he traded LeSean McCoy for is hobbled, as well. Throw in what appears to be an overestimation of both talent and depth at offensive line and at wide receiver, a draft that produced one impact player with an injury history who is again injured, and the loss of confidence is not without merit.

But where's the love? Why doesn't he get the Brett Brown treatment? Shouldn't Kelly's first two seasons here - the first in which he took most of the players Reid left him from a four-win season and flipped it into a 10-win playoff contender, the second also a 10-win season - earn him even a little wiggle room here?

A little confidence going forward?

More, say, than two head coaches and one manager who have the same or less experience at the pro level as he does, and - except for Hakstol - not nearly the track record?

And are his low numbers really less about his coaching acumen but the second job he took this season, picking the players?

Probably in there. But the real disconnect might be about the man himself, about a perceived arrogance that stands in contrast to the way both the hoops coach and baseball manager interact with the public. People seem to want Brown to be here when and if Hinkie's formula produces something more than potential. People seem to be rooting for Mackanin's late bloom, too.

Chip might not truly care whether we root for him to succeed. He certainly makes it seem that way at times.

Without it, though, we are left with only the expectations that came upon his arrival.

And he, in turn, is left with very little wiggle room.

On Twitter: @samdonnellon

Columns: ph.ly/Donnellon