Just when it appeared that all hope was lost for the Eagles and Chip Kelly, a very strange and exhilarating thing happened Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field. “Big Balls Chip” came back to life, and then so did his team.

The Eagles didn’t just throttle the New Orleans Saints, 39-17, they did so with a swagger that had been missing during their 1-3 start. They accumulated 519 yards on offense, forced four turnovers against legendary quarterback Drew Brees and dominated both sides of the ball.

There is new hope among Eagles fans today because the runners are running better, the blockers are finally blocking and Fletcher Cox is anchoring a powerful defensive unit. But the best reason for optimism is that Chip Kelly is going for the jugular again, taking no prisoners.

And the biggest twist in this story was the way Kelly managed it, with two bad play-calls that sent a bold message to his bedraggled players when they needed it the most. Kelly decided to gamble twice – on fourth and seven from the New Orleans 39, and fourth and nine from the Saints’ 35 – and failed to convert both times.

The TV announcers questioned the decisions, as did countless Twitter followers and 69,296 fans at the Linc. Later, Kelly said the ball was just outside of erratic kicker Caleb Sturgis’ range, but too close to the goal line to punt. He also said there was nothing more to his strategy than that.

Oh, please. Kelly knew exactly what he was doing when he handed the ball to Sam Bradford – hardly a known quantity these days himself, with two interceptions in the end zone – and risked giving “one of the all-time best quarterbacks in NFL history” excellent field position. And the coach did it anyway.

“We loved the aggressiveness,” said linebacker (and defensive leader) DeMeco Ryans on my WIP radio show Monday. “Even if it didn’t work, he was showing faith in us.”

The most perplexing part of this terrible start by the Eagles has been Kelly’s timidity. Fans couldn’t understand how a man who ran such a fast offense, who didn’t believe in huddles, who held practice to the beat of music, and who served smoothies for lunch could suddenly become so . . . traditional.

When Kelly sent Cody Parkey onto the field to try a 44-yard field goal with just under three minutes left in the season opener – one yard from a first down – everybody wanted to know what happened to Big Balls Chip. When his team fell asleep against Dallas, the search intensified. The passive loss to Washington last week only added to the mystery.

Well, the good news is, Kelly returned to his brash style against New Orleans, and not just with his play calls. He also received his first penalty ever when he screamed at the officials after they picked up a flag on a pass-interference call. Kelly was finally showing the aggression that made him such a special coach at Oregon, and in his early days here.

Now, a skeptic could argue that it was easy for Kelly to display confidence against a weak defense like coordinator Rob Ryan’s in New Orleans, but that argument ignores history. Kelly never cared who he was playing; he did it his way, always – until this season.

There is new hope among Eagles fans today because the runners are running better, the blockers are finally blocking and Fletcher Cox is anchoring a powerful defensive unit. But the best reason for optimism is that Chip Kelly is going for the jugular again, taking no prisoners.

Big Balls Chip is back – just in time to save the season.

***

For a fan, there is nothing more deflating than to witness a great play spoiled by the sudden intrusion of a yellow flag. Penalties are a necessary evil in the NFL, but the deluge so far this season has raised a simple question: Why are the refs ruining such a beautiful game?

Over the first month, there were more penalties called than in any NFL season ever – an average of 15 per contest. That’s two more than the average of the last five seasons. Even more galling to fans is how arbitrary the calls seem to be. There is no uniformity at all to pass-interference penalties, and countless holding calls have not held up under replay scrutiny.

Basically, the officials working in the NFL right now are not good at their jobs. When I asked Eagles center Jason Kelce last week about their work– he is on a record pace for flags himself this year – he said the officials are graded play by play just like the players. If they miss a call, they hear about it – more so than if a flag they do throw is questionable.

What is amazing about this fan-unfriendly trend is that it is not impacting negatively the always-rising TV ratings. Fan are complaining about the penalties more than ever – I take their calls on WIP radio every day – but not so much that they are tuning out the games.

Even national embarrassments like the final big play in the Seattle-Detroit game last Monday night, when a missed call on a batted ball in the back of the end zone decided the outcome, are not affecting fan hunger for the product. Fans love football, flaws and all.

After the Lions were robbed of an almost certain win, Detroit owner Patricia Ford was described as “livid” about the mistake, and the overall ineptitude of the refs this season. That’s a good sign because when the owners themselves get angry, often something gets done to fix it.

The officiating in football is the worst among the four major sports, overseen by aging men who have been in the league too long. The owners need to consider full-time refs, they need to hire a director of officials who actually knows what he’s doing, and they need to start worrying about how long fans will tolerate this infuriating problem.

***

In the space of a fleeting second, one blink of the eyes, Chase Utley is the talk of baseball again – a pariah in New York and a hero in Philadelphia. For a brief moment, Utley has done the impossible. He has made the Phillies relevant again.

Technically he is no longer a Phillie, having switched coasts near the trade deadline to Dodgerland, but the hatred he inspired in New York Mets fans did not originate in his hard slide into second base on Saturday, a play being called dirty by people who don’t understand Chase Utley.

Was the slide that broke Ruben Tejada’s leg late? Probably. Was it the key play in the Dodgers’ win in Game 2 of the division series over the Mets? Definitely. Did Utley try to hurt Tejada? Absolutely not. So what’s the problem? Well, that’s where it gets more complicated.

You see, the Mets hated Utley when he played them 19 times a year as a Phillie because he actually ran hard all the time, actually played the game the way it was meant to be played. Many of the Mets didn’t do that, which is one reason they were expected to choke in big moments. There’s a good reason they’ve been known as the Mutts.

When it was Utley who inflicted the pain – costing them a game and a key player – it was especially upsetting to them because of their long history with him. So they did the one thing the Mets truly excel at; they complained. Their crying got Utley a two-game suspension, at least pending his appeal. It also provided a handy excuse if they choke again.

Here’s the bottom line on the Chase Utley controversy: He played the game on Saturday the way he always has, and his hustle led to an important win for his team. He has honored the game of baseball every time he has stepped onto the field. His commitment to winning is not dirty or cheap or wrong. It is honorable.

Rest assured, the Mets would not be whining if Utley made that play while wearing their uniform, and they know it. The hysteria over Utley right now is typical of the Mets and their annoying fans.

I speak for all Philadelphia sports fans when I say: Go, Dodgers.

And finally …

     • Would you like to hear something hilarious? Ex-Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. has hired top agent Bob Lamonte to find him a new job. Now, that’s kind of funny in itself – since Amaro is unemployable as a GM – but the best part is the possible new direction of this search. Amaro is also looking for work as a big-league manager. That’s right, a manager. Let the bidding war begin. Ha, ha, ha.

     • If you’re looking for a rooting interest in the ongoing search for a new Phillies GM, please consider the candidacy of Kim Ng, a 46-year old baseball executive with impeccable credentials. She would be the first female GM in any of the four major sports. The Phils can go from hitting rock bottom to shattering the glass ceiling with one move. They should do it.

     • New culture, same old Flyers. They lost the season opener when two different players couldn’t convert penalty shots – a reprise of their annual shootout futility – and then they got destroyed with four goals in the first seven minutes in Florida. After two games, the players held a team meeting – not a good sign, either.

     • Don’t believe for a second the claims of ignorance by Flyers and Kings’ executives who say they had no idea ex-captain Mike Richard had “issues” when they paid him tens of millions over the past few years. At the very least, they had an inkling of trouble. Also, now that he’s no longer playing, is it asking too much for fans to know what these issues are?

     • OK, I’ll admit it. Even I am getting caught up in the unexpected success of Temple during their 5-0 start. I’m no big fan of college sports, and I have spent the past 25 years ridiculing the Temple football program on radio, but this is pretty amazing. Go, Owls. Make me look stupid. Not that you’d be the first to do that.