Chip Kelly’s Innovative Offensive Scheme Will Bode Well With Raiders

The Raiders knew they had to get experienced play callers and winners in the building to start from the ground up and return this historic franchise to its glory days. The Raiders have been on a perpetual skid from grace ever since they made the playoffs in 2021.

One of the things they did to bolster their chances of success was hiring Chip Kelly to be their offensive coordinator. This hiring came after he won a national championship with the Ohio State Buckeyes, and his return to the NFL after being fired in 2016 by the San Francisco 49ers.

For the most part, success has followed wherever Kelly goes, and his focus on the run game bodes well with how the Raiders want to establish their offensive identity. In an interview, Kelly sounded off on how he changes his offensive scheme based on his situation.

"I think you always adapt to your personnel. There's not a system. You could say, hey, we're going to do this. And, 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 these strengths?

Some teams are heavy running back-laden. Some teams are heavy wideout-laden. In 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 their strengths into the scheme that you're going to run. We have a lot of really good coaches on our staff, so it's also a blending of that, where they came from and what they feel really confident in doing.

And then really making an evaluation of what each individual group--offensive line, tight ends, running backs, quarterbacks, wideouts--does best. And then how do we match that up with a total system and a scheme? Because there's enough out there that we've all done. But it's just the key is matching our guy's strengths and what they do really well".

Kelly hopes to utilize the personnel they have in Las Vegas to their fullest potential, and he'll have a great chance of that with Ashton Jeanty. The pieces of success are all laid out in front of the Raiders organization, it's up to them to put all the pieces together.