It was no mystery watching the Raiders this year that the offense under Chip Kelly was seriously flawed.
Only the Titans were less effective on offense over the first 12 weeks of the season, and we’ve learned in the last few days some of the reasons why.
According to an NFL Network report on Wednesday, Kelly’s offense was often confusing and the veteran play caller would sometimes mix up calls or leave out important details when calling down plays to Geno Smith.
But there were also tendencies to Kelly’s play-calling that teams picked up on as the season progressed.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vinny Bonsignore, one of the obvious tendencies the Raiders’ offense had under Kelly was the run/pass ratio depending on whether Geno Smith lined up in shotgun or under center.
“The Raiders lined up in the shotgun 411 times under Kelly and were under center 214 times,” Bonsignore reported on Friday. “They ran 96 times in the shotgun and 146 times when under center, so it was often clear whether they were running or passing depending on the formation they were in.”
What that means is Kelly called pass plays around 77 percent of the time out of shotgun and ran the ball around 68 percent of the time under center.
At the NFL level, opposing teams pick up on run/pass tendencies out of different formations and with those numbers alone, it’s no wonder Kelly struggled to keep opposing defenses guessing.
It’s hard enough for offensive lines to block when opposing defenses don’t know what plays are coming. Under Kelly, the Raiders were essentially telling defenses what was coming and trying to block those plays with a depleted offensive line.
Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how the offense produces under interim offensive coordinator Greg Olson.
Even a semblance of competence under Olson should be considered an improvement over the last three weeks where the offense averaged just 11.0 points per game.
x: @raidersbeat