Former Commanders TE Explains Why Chip Kelly’s Offense Isn’t Working for the Raiders

Through three games, the Raiders have been one of the least effective teams in the NFL on offense and as many have pointed out, they don’t appear to have an identity as an offensive unit right now.

The offensive line has been struggling under offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and offensive line coach Brennan Carroll has taken some criticism since Sunday’s embarrassing loss to the Commanders.

Some of the Raiders’ O-line struggles might be related to personnel, but former Commanders tight end Logan Paulsen shared a few thoughts prior to Sunday’s game, and his comments from last week seem even more relevant today.

Paulson was critical of Kelly’s offensive scheme and detailed a few reasons why he thought it hasn’t been working for the Raiders.

Paulsen believes Chip Kelly’s offense is not as effective because of the NFL’s wider hash marks

“This is going to sound mean, but I don’t mean it to be in a mean way. This is like, it feels like a very collegey offense,” Paulsen said on the Take Command podcast. “It’s the spacing, the formations, the distribution, all feels very ‘collegy.'”

“One of the things in college is like you have these wider hash marks. You have these wider hash marks. When you run your RPOs, when you run your little bubble screen… when you run that seam that gets picked off against the Chargers… That works when you’re in college, when you’re on the left hash and the safety has to cover all this ground to get over top of the three-receiver set,” Paulson continued.

“Here, because of the hash marks, the safeties have to cover less ground, the linebackers don’t have to displace as far for the RPO… In college, that works really well because that guy’s displaced like four yards farther than he is in the NFL. You’re running and then that guy’s unblocked and he ends up making the tackle because not only is he closer, but guys in the NFL, linebackers specifically, secondary players, strong safeties, hook players are way, way faster. I do think there’s this simplistic element to the run game.”

Paulsen says Chip Kelly’s offense doesn’t create good angles with formations

“You look at really well-designed run games in the NFL [and] I think you look at Green Bay, you look at San Francisco as a good example. Baltimore does a great job in terms of creating good angles with formation, with receivers. There’s not a lot of that going on [with the Raiders],” Paulsen said.

“You can tell that Chip Kelly really wants to rely on the RPO to create and distribute the field and create space, but it’s not distributing the same way that it was when he was at Ohio State last year. I think you get some really tough matchups in the run game in terms of angles on combinations, and you get a lot of free runners because you’re not getting the same displacement because RPO. As a result, Ashton Jeanty is getting hit in the backfield a lot.”

Paulsen says Kelly’s route distributions feel like “college stuff”

“Even on the route distributions and stuff, it’s very vertical into the defense. There’s not a lot of cross releases [in the Raiders’ offense]. The timing and the spacing, it feels like college stuff in the sense where you don’t get like these spray releases. You’re not stressing hook players. It’s vertical, get to your spot,” Paulson said.

“And again, in college, it works because you have five more yards of grass that the defense has to defend over there. Here, the throwing windows are so much tighter.”

Will Kelly have to change his concepts at the NFL level?

“I think Chip Kelly will figure it out at some point. I think they’ll find a way to get a little bit more nuanced, a little bit more varied in terms of the run game that they’re calling, how they get to some of their past concepts, how they distribute the RPO stuff… but right now, man, it’s tough,” Paulson said.

“It’s tough for the backs to find a lot of air. Because like I said, it’s not only the RPO stuff doesn’t have a lot of grass. It’s the combinations on the offensive line. When you get in these wider splits from the offensive linemen, the receivers can’t really get into the blocking surface the same way.”

“They do have plays where the receivers get into the blocking surface. But now, if I’m running duo, the combination is really vertical. Those vertical combinations in the NFL are really, really hard. You’re not at Ohio State anymore where the guys you have are just better than the people across from you. You need to figure out ways to create angles, to create matchups. And right now, he’s not doing that.”

Looking ahead, it’s going to be interesting to see how Kelly’s offense develops and adjusts considering how bad it looked in the last two weeks.

Kelly appeared to share last week that Raiders’ minority owner Tom Brady has been involved in preparing game plans, so there is definitely a unique dynamic forming on the offensive side of the ball in Las Vegas.

When Pete Carroll was hired by the Raiders in January, the assumption was that the Raiders were going to be one of the most run-heavy offenses in the league.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

Geno Smith has attempted 106 passes in the first three weeks, and they’ve handed the ball off only 62 times.

It will be interesting to see if Carroll gets more involved with the offense this week, or if he decides to double down on the defense considering they didn’t play any better against the Commanders than the offense.

x: @raidersbeat

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