It was reported on Sunday that the Raiders reached a deal with Chip Kelly to be their next offensive coordinator, and it looks like what almost happened a year ago is going to fall into place this year.
Kelly was one of the top candidates in the mix to be the Raiders’ OC last year, but according to The Athletic’s Tashan Reed, it was a staffing issue that turned off Antonio Pierce at the time.
“Kelly was a finalist for the Raiders OC job last year after Kliff Kingsbury withdrew from the opening, but team sources said Kelly wanted to bring too many staffers with him from UCLA for Antonio Pierce’s liking,” Reed reported on Sunday.
Multiple reports have indicated that Kelly is going to make upwards of $6 million per year in Las Vegas and that a lot more than what the team was prepared to pay him a year ago.
Another interesting detail came from Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer.
According to Breer, the additional owners that bought into the Raiders a few months ago have a lot to do with why the team is able to pay Kelly like a head coach.
There have been reports that Davis is more financially secure than he has ever been and that is probably accurate. But based on Breer’s report, it sounds like the team’s controlling owner felt the need for more financial backing in recent months.
Looking back to Pierce’s decision to pass on Kelly a year ago, it definitely feels like the direction he chose to go with the offense was one of the biggest mistakes of his tenure as head coach.
Not only did Pierce pass on Kelly, but the Raiders also botched a deal with current Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury.
There are still details we don’t know about why Kingsbury bailed on the Raiders, but it has been reported that the team didn’t want to give him a third year on his deal a year ago.
“The Raiders miss on Kliff Kingsbury was purely contractual,” the aforementioned Albert Breer reported last year.
“They’d settled on making him their offensive coordinator. But when they sat down to hammer out a deal, Vegas declined to go to a guaranteed third year on it, and Kingsbury’s camp balked. The Washington Commanders caught wind of it. Coach Dan Quinn wanted someone who’d think outside the box (Chip Kelly was high on his list, too), and bring something adaptable for players coming out of college, and Kingsbury’s offense had been a challenge for his defense, too. So Washington moved fast, gave Kingsbury the third year, and Kingsbury, seeing not only that he’d have the extra year, but also the second pick in a quarterback-rich draft, jumped.”
x: @raidersbeat
Uh-yeah, I’m not so sure it’s fair to lay all this contract problem BS on AP’s doorstep. I seriously doubt he was operating the purse strings. it’s more likely that MD was hedging his investment in a first time head coach, by not investing too much dollars in the second tier coaches. Whatever, it looks like he’s spilling the ink this year to cover his lame *** effort last year. I don’t know that AP was the right choice, no experience in the game management, seems like his so called mentors used him to cash some checks, but he was not fully back by the organization. We’re moving forward, but lets watch the finger pointing.
Yea it’s MORE than fair! PIERCE SUCKED PURE AND SIMPLE!