When Las Vegas Raiders head coach Pete Carroll made the decision after last week's debacle of a loss to the Cleveland Browns to fire offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, it did more than shine the spotlight on himself for the rest of the 2025 season and into the offseason.
It also highlighted the lack of cohesion in the coaching offices, while explaining one of the reasons why the Raiders have struggled amid a 2-9 season in Carroll's first year.
By any account, Kelly's 11-game tenure that ended with a brutal home loss to Cleveland was a disaster, as the NFL's highest-paid coordinator ran one of the league's worst offenses.
But based on the views of those who studied the offense and based on those who game-planned against it this season, they don't believe Kelly was running his own offense at all. It was unlike anything Kelly previously had run.
In fact, defensive coordinators likened the Raiders offense this season more to Shane Waldron's offense with the Seahawks in 2023, Carroll's last year with Seattle. Kelly's trademark creative runs out of shotgun had been dramatically limited. Instead, the blend of Seattle and Las Vegas schemes tilted far more toward the under-center zone scheme Carroll favors.
One previous opponent even had their scout team prepare cards based on Seattle plays of the past under Carroll, sources say.
Which is why, though interim OC Greg Olson will likely go a little more up-tempo look and try to protect quarterback Geno Smith better, it's expected to be the same plays starting when the Raiders play the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday.
How bad has it been this year in Las Vegas? The Raiders have scored 15 points per game this season, tied for last in the NFL with the New Orleans Saints. They are also last in the NFL in yards per carry for the second straight season (3.5 in 2025; 3.6 in 2024).
There are, of course, other reasons why the offense sputtered. Carroll's hand-picked QB, Smith, leads the league in interceptions with 13. There also is a massive talent deficiency across the board, which is why some in the building have focused on the long-term build.
Yet Carroll is also a win-now coach, given his age (74) and the way he's wired, and that's led to some disconnect. For instance, so many of the Raiders' picks from April's draft have played sparingly, which is a rarity among teams with poor records as they get late into the season. Teams want to evaluate for the future. But that hasn't happened in Las Vegas this season.
While rookies have played 1,327 snaps for the Raiders on offense and defense this season (12th fewest in NFL), first-round running back Ashton Jeanty has played 479 of those (36%). Raiders rookies not named Jeanty have played just 848 offense and defense snaps.
The offensive issues have stood out.
NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero reported this past week on The Rich Eisen Show that Kelly sometimes botched his own play calls and, on several occasions, called plays that weren't in the game plan. That's a rarity in the NFL. Kelly, a 62-year-old who has run his own offense countless times, also was miffed at how heavy-handed Carroll was with what he wanted to run, and how he wanted it run. Sources say Kelly expressed frustration about the setup.
Kelly was the offensive coordinator at Ohio State in 2024 where he helped lead the Buckeyes to a College Football Playoff championship. He held a few options prior to taking the Raiders OC job in Feb. 2025, which marked his return to the NFL after nearly a decade away. Perhaps Kelly would have chosen a different opportunity if he had realized the lack of autonomy he would have in Las Vegas.
In the spring, for instance, sources said coaches were excited about the possibilities of Kelly's gun-based offense, only to run basically none of it this season. Not helping matters was that Kelly's staff contained mostly coaches with connections to Carroll, including offensive line coach Brennan Carroll. That made the blend of offenses not really a blend at all.
It's all led to a mess this season, one Las Vegas now has to climb its way out of with six games left on the schedule.
