Lincoln Kennedy is Fed Up with the Raiders’ Offense: “Blow Up Everything”

The Raiders are paying Chip Kelly a reported $6 million per year, and their offensive unit has arguably become the worst in the league in Kelly’s first year with the team.

On Sunday against the Chiefs, Kelly’s offense might have actually been the NFL’s worst offense in more than two decades.

It’s anyone’s guess what the Raiders are going to do over the bye week, but if Lincoln Kennedy has his way, the offense will be entirely blown up.

Presumably, Kelly isn’t looking for advice from Raiders’ alumni, but if he is, Kennedy was dishing it out on Monday.

“This team doesn’t have the ability to come back and stay toe to toe with most offenses in the league right now. So totally blow up everything this bye week. Go with a different offense,” Kennedy said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast.

“Put Geno under center, put a traditional tight end and take your other tight end and put them in the backfield as a fullback and you do a mimic of an eye formation, do a mimic of an eye formation and run straight downhill right at these opposing teams that you are facing,” Kennedy continued. “What this is going to do is it’s going to say, ‘I’m relying on you to get it done’ and that’s exactly what these guys in the front need.”

“[They need] to stand up. I don’t care if it’s JPJ. I don’t care who’s out there. These guys need to stand up for themselves and defend themselves because there’s no reason to go from shotgun on the three-yard line and throw a **** tackle eligible. So that’s all I got to say about that.”

Kennedy may not have said it directly, but it has become clear over the last few weeks that he isn’t on board with what Kelly has been trying to do with the offense this season.

Kennedy and others have talked about how Kelly isn’t doing his running backs and receivers any favors with his scheme and Sunday was just the latest example.

Marcus Johnson on X (formerly Twitter): “One of my problems with Kelly’s offense right now is the timing of the routes with the QB.Bech against Mcduffie, runs a great route at the bottom but Smith is doing a five step drop out of shotgun. It makes him late and you can even see him rush the drop from the end zone view…. pic.twitter.com/FtmTyKZf2b / X”

One of my problems with Kelly’s offense right now is the timing of the routes with the QB.Bech against Mcduffie, runs a great route at the bottom but Smith is doing a five step drop out of shotgun. It makes him late and you can even see him rush the drop from the end zone view….

Last week, Kennedy said he was hearing rumors of some division forming in the Raiders’ locker room, so it will be interesting to see if he comments more on that dynamic in the days ahead.

At the time, Kennedy’s co-host, Q Myers, said the locker room seemed to be coming together after the Titans game.

“I can tell you, after being in that locker room and talking to multiple players, and we talked to a handful of players after the game, just them saying that what we were able to do in practice, the way that we, you know, saw things, drew it up, looked at it on film, and said this is what we were going to do and to be actually able to go execute it the way that they wanted to and creating some turnover, something that they haven’t done in a while, getting to the quarterback, something that they haven’t done in a while, like all that coming together made them come together even more,” Myers said.

“I can tell you, regardless of any of those rumors that are out there, and you have the player-only meeting [rumor], Maxx Crosby said that was BS, and Elandon Roberts says that was BS,” Myers continued.

“He said, ‘Man, I don’t know what meeting they were in, because I’m in every one of them, and that was all stuff that’s just internet stuff.’ So this team is all together. They all have Geno’s back, and they all have each other’s back, and you can see that camaraderie in the locker room following the game. It was really a good sight to see.”

After Sunday’s game in Kansas City, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the Raiders’ locker room is coming together, and one of the most difficult challenges of Pete Carroll’s coaching career is going to be navigating the remainder of the 2025 season.

From the outside, this year’s situation looks about as hopeless as anything the Raiders have been up against in a long time.