When the Las Vegas Raiders decided to make Chip Kelly the highest-paid offensive coordinator in the NFL last year, there was some excitement, but also some skepticism. While it made sense to give him a chance to call NFL plays again, it didn’t make sense to pay him the way they did.
They quickly realized that was a huge mistake. Kelly clearly didn’t have the creativity to keep up in the NFL, and it’s unclear if he even cared to try. The Raiders’ offense was completely listless and finished the year as the worst in the league. Kelly was fired halfway through the season, so it was a colossal waste of money for the franchise.
Kelly has had success in the past, but it’s clear he can’t innovate as he used to. According to The Athletic’s Robert Mays, Kelly was just trying to take plays that he saw were successful around the NFL.
“I was talking to a coach from a different team today, just completely without provocation, started talking about the Raiders last year, and what it was like to watch the Raiders’ offense, and he’s like, ‘They ran every cool play a team would run over the past two weeks, and it had absolutely no cohesion or fundamental principles to it. It wasn’t built on anything.’ And I think you could feel that when you watched them,” Mays said on “The Athletic Football Show.”
Raiders Should Be in Better Hands
Kelly clearly lost his edge years ago. He’s not the same coach who won a ton of games with the Oregon Ducks. There’s a reason he gave up a head coaching job at UCLA just to go be an offensive coordinator. After his disaster of a Raiders stint, he’s almost certainly done in the NFL. He’s now the offensive coordinator at Northwestern.
The Raiders certainly won’t miss him. They were able to hire Klint Kubiak as head coach, who just called plays for the Super Bowl-winning Seattle Seahawks. He’s much younger and more innovative than Kelly at this stage in his career. He’s certainly not going to go around and try to replicate cool plays he saw around the NFL.
The Raiders went with defensive coaches who struggled to find good offensive coordinators for their last two hires, so the hope is that Kubiak can finally bring stability to that side of the ball.
Raiders Offense Should Be Greatly Improved
The Raiders had the worst scoring offense in the NFL and the fourth-worst in 2024. While the lack of a good playcaller is a big reason for that, the team also hasn’t been brimming with offensive talent.
The quarterback position has been a mess, but the Raiders drafted Fernando Mendoza with the No. 1 pick. That alone should help improve things. The Raiders also spent big to sign star center Tyler Linderbaum. There’s legitimate talent on the offense now.
It’s hard to see the Raiders having the worst offense in the NFL again. They’re likely still another year or two away from being a top-10 unit, but it could be one of the most improved offenses in the NFL in 2026.
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