Who’s to blame for the Raiders’ horrific failure on offense this year?
Depending on who you agree with in the last 72 hours, the responsible party is either Chip Kelly or Pete Carroll.
Kelly took a beating last week in the news cycle with reports that he was botching play calls and running a dysfunctional offense, but on Saturday evening, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport swooped in with a much different narrative.
According to Rapoport, Kelly was essentially running Carroll’s offense that he brought from Seattle in 2023.
“Based on the views of those who studied the offense and based on those who game-planned against it this season, they don’t believe Kelly was running his own offense at all. It was unlike anything Kelly previously had run,” Rapoport reported on Saturday.
“In fact, defensive coordinators likened the Raiders offense this season more to Shane Waldron’s offense with the Seahawks in 2023, Carroll’s last year with Seattle,” Rapoport continued. “Kelly’s trademark creative runs out of shotgun had been dramatically limited. Instead, the blend of Seattle and Las Vegas schemes tilted far more toward the under-center zone scheme Carroll favors.”
“One previous opponent even had their scout team prepare cards based on Seattle plays of the past under Carroll, sources say.”
Rapoport followed up his report on air with his colleague, Tom Pelissero, who was the NFL Network insider who reported on Kelly’s play-calling woes last week on the Rich Eisen Show.
It was an awkward moment of sorts, and it has become clear in recent days that there are two camps working hard against each other right now.
Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter addressed Rapoport’s report on Sunday night and he was adamant that Kelly was given autonomy over the offense since the day he was hired in February.
“I’m telling you, Chip Kelly was able to do what Chip Kelly wanted with the offense,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
“I know there are some people saying that Pete interfered. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe it, and I have reason to believe it. And if you think it’s from Pete, it’s not. But what I will tell you is, is someone asked me, you know, there are reports that Pete interfered. I said, ‘No, I don’t believe that, and I have reason to believe it because I was told by someone, not Pete, that Pete didn’t interfere, that Chip had a ton of leeway with this offense.'”
“But what I will tell you is, I know that Pete has had say in the defense and that’s just the reality. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t because that he has.”
On the other side of the ball, though, there’s no question Carroll has been heavily involved.
It has been well documented this year that defensive coordinator Patrick Graham has been forced to blend his system to what Carroll wants to run, and the CBS broadcast on Sunday alluded to that dynamic.
“Pete Carroll made his bones in Seattle [with] Cover 3, Cover 1, with those superior defensive players in Seattle, the Legion of Boom,” CBS analyst Charles Davis said in the first quarter of Sunday’s broadcast. “Here, he doesn’t have that, but those are his roots and so he’s working those in along with what Patrick Graham [runs]… so they’re trying to make sure that they work together on that, smash together philosophies to come up with something that’s coherent.”
Would Carroll really be involved in the defense but not the offense?
In theory, that might make sense because Carroll is a defensive coach, but there is also the element of Carroll’s sons being on the offensive coaching staff.
Brennan Carroll is the Raiders’ Run Game Coordinator and Offensive Line Coach while Nate Carroll is the Assistant Quarterbacks Coach.
With two Carrolls on the offensive side of the ball, it’s hard to imagine the elder Carroll stayed out of everything on offense. With that in mind, Pete Carroll has long been known as a coach that likes to take a ground-and-pound approach on offense.
That didn’t happen this year with Kelly calling the plays.
Only three teams (Cincinnati, Tennessee and Arizona) have passed the ball at a higher rate than the Raiders in 2025.
Where do the Raiders go from here?
With five weeks remaining in the season, the leaks and rumors are just getting started.
Carpenter hinted at the end of his show that more information will be coming on the Carroll/Kelly dynamic.
“He is not one to fire any coaches mid-year,” Carpenter said of Carroll. “He had to fire Tom McMahon and quite frankly, he had to fire Chip Kelly. I’m going to leave it there. We’ll get into more of that in the off season.”
From the outside, it feels like the Raiders are probably going to hit the reset button on the coaching staff at the end of the season, but there is still another month to right the ship.
Maybe the players and coaching staff can stack together a few productive games, but the worst-case scenario going forward would be to throw away a top-3 pick in the draft. The worst sabotage imaginable would be a 4-13 record and walk away from the 2025 season with the 11th-overall pick.
x: @raidersbeat
People on the inside told Rapoport that Kelly wasn’t running his offense. I believe them before I believe Hondo. When people say they watch the film and that wasn’t Kelly’s offense, that is very credible.
Hondo’s opinion is not.
What happened yesterday? Kelly wasn’t there and it was the same thing.
Carroll needs to go.
Not to mention all the times Hondo has reported based on some special inside source he has only for it to be proven false.
I know this is a mean thing to say, but I think Hondo is a useful tool who will launder information for sources, regardless of truth and he never seems to do anything when those sources burn him, and they do repeatedly, as info comes out that show his sources were lying.
Like I said, the owner needs to Cell and everybody below him needs to go. this is a **** show that can’t be fixed unless it’s burned to the ground and rebuilt from Ash.
Cell? L
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F
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Get the F??k out of Vegas… see if Ronnie lott and company are still Interested … they can still save the Raiders name and reputation… Mark and tom can start their own team the lost vegas sad sacks… can’t believe they started geno the cochino no raider player has ever did that… mr Davis should have sold the team that would have kept the Raiders in Oakland instead of selling his soul to his butt buddy that keeps hanging his 7 super bowls over his head… and making him a lame duck owner… my opinion only…
All you people who can’t get past the ownership situation should just find a new team. Mark Davis is nothing in this world without owning the Raiders, he would be some weird dude on the strip paying off ex-wives instead of coaches. He needs friends like TB12 because when his old man was alive, that was as close as he could get to the organization was being pals with talent. He’s not going away until heaven or hell comes calling. He just needs to find a football savant who wants to build his own dynasty and has the creds to bring in the supporting cast. Brady is a football geek who thinks he is going to find 55 other freaks who live and think like he does. There aren’t any. he’s a weird. Get someone like Sean Mcvay, who might want a new challenge, team president, a guy is not quite 40 and already has an impressive coaching tree. Someone very connected to coaches and and execs, not someone prying his way into the league with his glory days like some old prom king.
Racked. +1.
That’s why he likes Gruden so much. Gruden treated him like a human back in 2000 when Mark was treated like a second class citizen.
for sure, Gruden connected with people, and annoyed Al. Just wonder how Madden lasted, I think AD got more sensitive to it as he aged.
Al was a minority owner when Madden was HC. Madden was a motivator and that’s it. Al was still razor sharp and it was his defense.
My mom was friends with Madden in high school.
John spyteck needs to grow a pair and say I am the man! With Tom and Mark approval the gm is the man and that is me! Pete Carroll will do it my way do what I say or you get a one way ticket to where ever you want to go! The general manager is the boss the coach is the employee, John tried to earn us Pete ignored it, .John please throw a pair for Christmas
Please John use the power you have