As the Raiders continue to flounder on offense, the conversations around offensive coordinator Chip Kelly have intensified in recent weeks.
It’s reasonable to believe Kelly is inching closer to the hot seat and the suggestions that his offenses don’t translate to the NFL are starting to become a little more believable.
The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen talked this week about the Raiders’ offensive performance in Denver, and he said what anyone hoping to see Kelly turn things around doesn’t want to hear.
“This [was] just another game where I just didn’t see them attack certain areas of weakness against the Broncos’ defense,” Nguyen said on the Just Win podcast on Wednesday.
“We talked about it before the podcast. The one area where you can get this defense is targeting your tight ends. [Denver was] giving up the most yards per catch to tight ends in the league, and they couldn’t get Brock Bowers going. I thought maybe they double-teamed Brock Bowers a lot… but that wasn’t the case. You’re getting Brock Bowers singled up in man coverage and you couldn’t find ways to get him the ball…”
Even worse, Nguyen said again this week that Kelly’s playbook is too simple, and he runs too many of the same concepts.
“They ran mesh, I don’t know, a hundred times in that game,” Nguyen continued. “I get it, mesh, when you have two crossing patterns and you’re trying to create a rub against man, but that’s not the only answer against man coverage. You know the Broncos have seen mesh a lot just based on the type of coverage they played.”
“I think with Chip Kelly, we’re seeing a lot of the problems with college offensive coordinators that are making the jump into the league. They just don’t have a very diverse pass concept menu and that works in college, but in the NFL, when the other team knows what you’re going to do on third and long, it’s just hard to execute. And they run the same stuff over and over again.”
Kelly is the highest-paid offensive coordinator in the NFL, and in some ways, he has earned it.
Kelly has been the architect of a few high-powered college offenses and won the NCAA Championship as the offensive coordinator at Ohio State last year.
But for whatever reason, Kelly’s concepts haven’t been able to find sustained success in the NFL.
The Raiders don’t seem to be improving on offense and it’s hard to imagine Kelly’s group will get it together now that two of their best offensive linemen have been placed on injured reserve and their no. 1 wide receiver has been shipped to Jacksonville.
x: @raidersbeat
The O line can’t block a turtle and you’re wondering why the offense doesn’t work?
Really?
Why isn’t the hot seat on Brennan Carroll?
Yeah I’d live Daboll, McDaniels, or Kubiak as HC but this OL is horrible along with a crap QB & they blame the OC
True fire Carols son and send Geno with him