Everyone wants to see the Raiders’ offense feature more Ashton Jeanty, but offensive coordinator Chip Kelly didn’t want to hear critiques about his play calling at Tuesday’s press conference.
“I think he leads the league in rookie rushing [touches], doesn’t he?” Kelly said to members of the media about Jeanty on Tuesday.
“Everything we do game plan wise is about winning that game. It’s not about how many touches. Maybe some fantasy people are a little disturbed but we’re not coaching for fantasy people. We’re just trying to win games, so he’s our no. 1 back and when we’re running the ball, he’s running the football.”
Kelly probably understands this, but’s it’s not just the fantasy football community wanting to see Jeanty more involved in the offense.
The head coach, fans and even the Vegas dancers and their pets want to see Jeanty get more than 13 carries per game – particularly in a close game with a full overtime period.
There’s no way the decision makers in the Raiders’ building used a premium draft pick on Jeanty (while turning down several trade offers) to see him not get 20+ carries per game.
Carroll has talked about running the ball more and just about everyone around Carroll seems to have gotten the message in recent weeks. After talking to the Carroll last week, flagship radio host ‘JT the Brick’ said he has never been more convinced that the head coach wants to emphasize the running game going forward.
“I have never been more sold on Pete Carroll wanting to run the ball than today,” JT said on his Raider Nation Radio show last Tuesday.
“You want to take something out of this monologue and clip it? Clip this. I have never been more sold today on Pete Carroll’s philosophy of running the football. Everything going forward moves on that. They have got to establish the run to get Geno [Smith] going. He didn’t tell me that specifically, but I’m a talk show host, and I can tell you what my impressions of the interview that I conducted. I look him in the eye, he looks me in the eye. He wants to run the ball. Everything is predicated on getting this kid Ashton Jeanty going. If it does, it opens it up for Geno.”
After Sunday’s game (where Jeanty only carried the ball 13 times), Raider Nation Radio host Q Myers chimed in on Kelly’s apparent aversion to running the ball.
“I still don’t think they ran the ball enough. I still don’t think that they had a commitment to the run game. Jeanty started off the game, two carries,17 yards. There was a point where he was averaging about nine yards a carry, then fourth and one, they decided to roll Geno out and it goes incomplete,” Myers said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast.
“To me, it’s almost a resistance from Chip Kelly and I’m just saying this from the naked eye looking at it. It just almost seems like he just refuses to have a true commitment to running the ball. I mean, Jeanty to end the game with 15 carries? It’s just not enough. He’s that kind of guy. He needs more carries.”
Everyone knew coming into the season that Carroll wanted to run the ball and the fact that the Raiders haven’t emphasized the running game has been one of the biggest surprises of the season.
In recent weeks, the message has been coming from everywhere to give Jeanty the ball more but, so far, Kelly has not gotten the message…
Or more likely, he has gotten the message but is determined to do things the way he wants.
x: @raidersbeat
AJ shouldn’t have been taken top 10 especially by this team. Chip is being set up to be the scapegoat. By Pete, Tom and Spy. Of course it wasn’t any of their faults. P.Graham is probably on his last year at the defensive helm as well since getting rid of Chip alone won’t be enough. This last draft was such a colossal disaster. To get that many overall selections and to get one starter is criminal but to get so little from all the draft picks combined is a reason for unemployment.
The Raiders can’t admit that Jeanty is too small to get 25-30 carries a game. Chip Kelly is actually covering for Carroll’s and Spytek’s stupidity.
The OC actually has a Point…