The Raiders fired offensive coordinator Chip Kelly in the hours after Sunday’s 24-10 loss to the Browns, and it marked the end of one of the worst coordinator tenures in the team’s history.
There were a lot of factors that contributed to Kelly’s 31st-ranked offense, but two Raider legends this week pointed to the same issue they had with his coaching.
On separate radio appearances, Lincoln Kennedy and Eric Allen both questioned the freedom Kelly afforded Geno Smith at the line of scrimmage.
Kennedy said Kelly didn’t give Smith enough freedom to make audibles
“Football’s not that hard of a game. In any system I’ve ever played on, even to the right, even numbers to the right, odd numbers to the left. So if it’s, you know, 28 toss, that’s going to the right,” Kennedy said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast.
“Why is my quarterback and my offensive lineman going to the right and everyone else is going to the left? What the hell is that in a professional game? How did you not get the audible? Did you not get the call? Geno Smith, to me, did not have enough freedom to make audibles.”
“There were plays I was looking at from the side, oh, get out of it, get out of it. Oh, they ran right into it, right. Why, why? And it was disastrous. They couldn’t pick up blitzes, simple blitzes, mic dogs and safety blitzes that you’re supposed to assign for and you’re blocking assignments.”
Eric Allen said Kelly should have tapped into Smith’s experience and given him flexibility at the line of scrimmage
“The one question that I believe everyone kind of asked themselves through the course of the last 10, 11 weeks, did Geno not have the ability to adapt and change at the line of scrimmage?” Allen asked on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.
“That’s just one of the things that I think everyone who has watched football long enough understands. When you’re a veteran quarterback, the one thing that we all believe that you have is the ability to get to the line of scrimmage and have a chance at adapting and changing to the right play, and I just didn’t see that flexibility with Geno.”
“I’m not sure if that’s Chip or Geno, but I have seen Geno do that in previous years on different football teams and it just seems like the play calling was about the offense opposed to having the offense designed to take advantage of the defense’s weaknesses. And every defense has a weakness.”
Both players agreed the Raiders offensive line put Kelly at a disadvantage
It’s not an excuse, but the Raiders’ offense was essentially doomed when their two best linemen went down with injuries.
The modified version of the offensive line has been awful, and Yahoo and FOX Sports host Jason Fitz said on Tuesday that a former player told him the Raiders’ O-line was the worst he has ever seen.
“One former offensive lineman in the NFL told me he had never seen from left to right a worse collection of five guys on one offensive line in his entire career. Ever,” Fitz said on the Wednesday’s Morning Tailgate on the team’s flagship radio station.
That’s a strong statement… but does anyone who has watched the Raiders this year disagree?
x: @raidersbeat