What brought Dennis Kelly back six years after getting traded for Dorial Green-Beckham
What brought Dennis Kelly back six years after getting traded for Dorial Green-Beckham originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Dennis Kelly has never met Dorial Green-Beckham. Never been his teammate. Never interacted with him at all.
But their lives will always be intertwined.
It was seven years ago this month that Kelly and Green-Beckham were traded for each other (the Kelly-Green trade?), the Eagles shipping the late-round 26-year-old backup offensive lineman to the Titans for the flashy 23-year-old wide receiver.
Kelly had started just five games over the previous couple years, and Green-Beckham had just averaged 17.2 yards on 32 catches with four TDs as a hot-shot rookie 2nd-round pick with the Titans.
It seemed like a steal, and it was.
But not how anyone thought.
DGB was out of the league a few months later and never played again. Kelly? He’s still going at it, heading into his 12th season back where he started with 130 games and 54 starts under his belt.
“I've been asked questions about him a bunch, and I never met him, never knew him, so I can't really comment on him,” Kelly said about DGB. “But yeah, I always knew that I could play in this league and I think I was able to get in a good spot to where I could show what I could do.
“At some point, I was able to block for a 2,000-yard rusher (Derrick Henry in 2020), which not a lot of people get to say. So yeah, obviously I've been very proud of my career, and glad to come back and maybe kind of show what I've learned and what I can do.”
Which is a very polite way of saying … the Eagles lost that 2016 trade.
But after spending last year with the Colts and with the Eagles needing o-line depth, a return to Philly made sense, and Kelly signed with the Eagles as a free agent just before camp began.
“Last couple offseasons, I’ve been a free agent and Howie’s been in touch most of the time," Kelly said.
"It was one of those times(this year) where he said, ‘Do you want to do it?’ Of course. The year they had last year? I know the organization. I know Stout. There's obviously a bunch of people here that were here when I was here.
“Going into this offseason, if I was going to play it had to make sense. I wasn't just going to play just to play. … But with an opportunity to play back where it started with with a great team, a great organization, it made sense.”
Kelly has been taking 2nd-team reps at both tackle spots and could wind up as the backup to both Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson, with Jack Driscoll possibly moving exclusively to backup guard. Or they could each back up one side. We'll see how it goes.
“Dennis is awesome,” said Kelce, his teammate from 2012 through 2015. “One of those guys people have kept in touch with. He’s ended up having a very long career. He was brought in the same year as Fletcher Cox and I think he’s proven to be a very valuable player and he can play multiple positions.
"Really smart, great-for-the-room type guy, everybody loves him, and we’re certainly excited to have him back in the building.”
If Kelly gets into a game, he’ll set a franchise record with a seven-year gap between appearances in an Eagles uniform (2016 through 2022). Derrick Burgess – an Eagle from 2001 through 2004 and again in 2010 – currently holds that record.
Kelly was a rookie in 2012 – he joins Kelce, Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham as the fourth Eagle who practiced at Lehigh – and after playing under Howard Mudd for one year, he got three years with legendary o-line coach Jeff Stoutland before he was traded.
Kelly said the time he spent with Stout and the lessons he learned carried over throughout his career.
“It really was tremendous, and I am very appreciative of being able to work with him as long as I did,” he said. “His attention to detail and his standard is so high, it really helped me set a standard for myself and kind of as I went throughout the rest of my career, that was kind of the standard I had to try and keep up with.
“The farther away from him, I got, I got a little bit away from his technique or the details, so it's going to be good to be here again and kind of freshen up on it.”
