After falling short in a bid to land the Raiders’ general manager job, Champ Kelly is still heading to Las Vegas. The Raiders hired the longtime Bears executive to be their assistant GM on Wednesday, per a team announcement.
While Kelly has spent the past seven years in Chicago, rising to the role of assistant director of player personnel, he worked with new Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels during his brief Denver stay. Kelly was with the Broncos before and after McDaniels’ stint but rose to the post of assistant pro personnel director while McDaniels was running the show from 2009-10.
Kelly has been a GM candidate for a bit now, interviewing with the Broncos and Panthers last year. The Bears interviewed him for their GM role last month but ended up hiring Chiefs exec Ryan Poles. Kelly will now be new Raiders GM Dave Ziegler‘s right-hand man in the revamped Vegas front office. Ziegler also worked alongside Kelly with the Broncos during McDaniels’ stay, beginning his personnel career after Kelly had already arrived in Denver.
The 2022 season will mark Kelly’s 16th in the NFL. He began as a Broncos scout in 2007. The Bears hired him to be their pro scouting director in 2015. Unlike McDaniels and Ziegler, Kelly has no ties to the Patriots. Mark Davis has cleaned house in recent weeks, fully moving on from the Jon Gruden-Mike Mayock power structure.
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