Silver And Black Pride
The offensive coordinator has been implementing concepts from other systems that the quarterback has played in
Going back to his days at Oregon and his brief stint as the Philadelphia Eagles’ head coach, new Las Vegas Raiders offensive coordinator Chip Kelly has a long-standing reputation as an offensive innovator. One way he earned that distinction is by never being stuck in his ways and constantly willing to adapt his scheme.
Now that Kelly will be working with new Raiders’ starting quarterback Geno Smith for the first time, the coach is making sure to adjust his offense to Smith’s strengths, which the coach shined some light on recently.
“The beauty of Geno is that Geno has been in multiple systems now, and there’s a lot of things Geno can do,” Kelly told reporters during OTAs in Las Vegas on May 29. “I don’t think you can just pigeonhole him. I think he runs better than people really give him credit for. You look at the two-minute drive against the [San Francisco] 49ers at the end of the game, and he runs it in for the winner.”
In the contest the offensive coordinator refers to, the Seattle Seahawks trailed by four with 2:38 to play. Smith led an 11-play two-minute drive that was capped off by his 13-yard scamper for the win. In that contest specifically, he had four carries for 29 yards in addition to the touchdown. He finished last season with 53 rushing attempts, 272 rushing yards and two scores on the ground.
“I think [Smith] can beat you with his feet,” Kelly continued. “He can keep plays alive with his feet. He’s extremely accurate. He gets the ball out of his hand quickly. He can be a movement guy, but he can also be a drop-back guy, and Pete [Carroll] and Greg Olson, our quarterback coach, had a great understanding, because they’ve coached him for such a long time.” Carroll coached Smith for five seasons in Seattle and Olson was there for one year.
“And what we saw in terms of Pete’s evaluation, Oli’s (Olson) evaluation of him is what I’ve seen here. I think whatever we fit into schematically offensively, I think Geno can handle all that.”
When it comes to putting together the Raiders’ offense in 2025, the play-caller and quarterback have been working together as Kelly has been picking the quarterback’s brain for concepts that Smith liked at previous stops.
“Geno is a football guy, like Geno loves ball,” Kelly said. “We’ll talk on a Tuesday night about what transpired that day, ‘How do you see this?’ And I really lean on him a little bit, because of his wealth of experience, and he’s been through different coordinators in this league, and some really good ones.
“So like, ‘Hey, how did Shane [Wadron] do this when you were with him?’ Or, ‘How did [Ryan] Grubb do this when you were with him?’ And kind of pick his brain that...
