Silver And Black Pride
Offensive coordinator didn’t tip his cap much, but notes his offense adapts to players
At this stage of the offseason, garnering any specifics for any football team is an exercise in the generic.
Sure, the questions must be asked as there are several curious to the nature of a football team that has a new head coach and general manager. And any regime change merits queries on what to expect. But nary a coach or personnel person are going to be forthcoming with details.
Especially in May and June.
Las Vegas Raiders offensive coordinator Chip Kelly was no different. The Silver & Black’s new play caller arrives with some serious accolades — namely orchestrating the National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes offense last season — and is the lead man in resurrecting a Raiders offense that was erratic in 2024.
Consistency will very much be key.
And like mentioned above, the questions came flooding in. (But before that, I just wanted to reiterate the hilarious retort Kelly had when queried about prized rookie running back Ashton Jeanty’s stance changing from his standing Michael Meyers one to a more traditional bent version.)
From the get, Kelly didn’t want limit his offense and noted he isn’t going to be forcing a round peg into a square hole in Las Vegas. Kelly said he’s going to adapt his Raiders offense to the personnel available to him and his long history from the college to pro game is indicative of that.
“I think you always adapt to your personnel. There’s not a system — like you can say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna do this,’ and then if that’s not the strength of your players — I think part of the OTA process for us is getting to understand what the strengths of these players are, and then how do you play to those strengths,” Kelly said after one of the team’s OTA sessions. “Some teams are heavy running back laden, some teams are heavy wide out laden, some teams the quarterback is just a drop back guy, but he’s not a movement guy. It all depends on who you have personnel wise, and then you try to fit in their strengths into the scheme that you’re going to run. And we have a lot of really, really good coaches on our staff.”
This common-sense approach wasn’t so common the last two Raiders regimes. At times, system took precedent over personnel and it resulted in erratic to no production at time sand really hampered Las Vegas overall.
Kelly does have young star power at his disposal as he takes the helm for the Silver & Black offense in tight end Brock Bowers (13th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft), center Jackson Powers-Johnson (second round of 2024 draft), and running back Ashton Jeanty (sixth overall pick in the 2025 draft) along with productive veterans at other key spots in Geno Smith (quarterback), Kolton Miller (left tackle), and Jakobi Meyers (wide receiver), to name a...
