The Raiders are hiring Chip Kelly to serve as their offensive coordinator. Put me down as interested. Most of his work has been at the college level, but he’s been innovative and productive – they’ll be putting up a lot more yards and points than they have in recent years.
Kelly spent three years as a head coach for Philadelphia. While he wasn’t an overwhelming success, he went 26-21 as a starter. Those offenses ranked 4th, 3rd and 13th in scoring, and 2nd, 5th and 12th in yards gained. He know how to put together an attack.
Chip Kelly was the offensive coordinator last year of the Ohio State team that won the national title.
Back in 2013, I remember Kelly catching a lot of opponents off guard with his rapid-fire offensive style – particularly in a Week 1 Monday night win at Washington. The Eagles that year led the league in rushing, and Nick Foles threw 27 touchdowns versus only 2 interceptions.
When Foles was starting that year, he was the 3rd-most productive quarterback in the league, averaging 265 passing yards in 10 games, with a combined 27 touchdowns. (He was helped along by a 7-touchdown game against the Raiders.)
The following year, both Foles and Mark Sanchez started eight games. Both threw 13 touchdowns in their eight starts, and both averaged at least 270 passing yards. I will be interested to see who’ll be quarterbacking this year.
In the below chart, the final column (“rank”) shows how the quarterbacks ranked relative to others who started at least half of the time that season.
CHIP KELLY'S STARTING QUARTERBACKS | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year | Player | G | Pass | TDP | Int | Run | TDR | Pts | Rk |
2013 | Nick Foles | 10 | 265 | 2.40 | .20 | 22 | .30 | 27.2 | 3 |
2013 | Michael Vick | 6 | 203 | .83 | .50 | 51 | .33 | 20.6 | -- |
2014 | Mark Sanchez | 8 | 277 | 1.63 | 1.13 | 10 | .13 | 22.1 | 10 |
2014 | Nick Foles | 8 | 270 | 1.63 | 1.25 | 9 | .00 | 20.9 | 16 |
2015 | Sam Bradford | 14 | 266 | 1.36 | 1.00 | 3 | .00 | 19.0 | 27 |
2015 | Mark Sanchez | 2 | 230 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 9 | .00 | 20.4 | -- |
I expect the Raiders will be running the ball more often and more effectively. Kelly’s three teams in Philadelphia ranked 1st, 9th and 14th in rushing. All of those teams had a top-15 running back (using PPR scoring).
CHIP KELLY RUNNING BACKS | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year | Player | Rushing | Receiving | Yards | TD | PPR | Rk |
2013 | LeSean McCoy | 314-1607-9 | 52-539-2 | 2146 | 11 | 332.6 | 3 |
2014 | LeSean McCoy | 312-1319-5 | 28-155-0 | 1474 | 5 | 205.4 | 12 |
2015 | DeMarco Murray | 193-702-6 | 44-322-1 | 1024 | 7 | 188.4 | 15 |
2014 | Darren Sproles | 57-329-6 | 40-387-0 | 716 | 8 | 159.6 | 22 |
2015 | Darren Sproles | 83-317-3 | 55-388-1 | 705 | 6 | 161.5 | 26 |
2015 | Ryan Mathews | 106-539-6 | 20-146-1 | 685 | 7 | 130.5 | 36 |
2013 | Bryce Brown | 75-314-2 | 8-84-0 | 398 | 2 | 61.8 | 63 |
2013 | Chris Polk | 11-98-3 | 4-61-0 | 159 | 3 | 37.9 | 82 |
2014 | Chris Polk | 46-172-4 | 2-16-0 | 188 | 5 | 50.8 | 83 |
2015 | Kenjon Barner | 28-124-0 | 9-22-0 | 146 | 0 | 23.6 | 109 |
Kelly’s three NFL offenses ranked 8th, 6th and 11th in passing. All three of those teams had a wide receiver who caught more than 80 passes, including 8-plus touchdowns. Two of those guys also averaged at least 15.5 yards per catch – getting the ball downfield.
CHIP KELLY'S WIDE RECEIVERS | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year | Player | G | No | Yards | Ag | TD | PPR | Rk |
2014 | Jeremy Maclin | 16 | 85 | 1318 | 15.5 | 10 | 276.8 | 9 |
2013 | DeSean Jackson | 16 | 82 | 1332 | 16.2 | 9 | 269.4 | 12 |
2015 | Jordan Matthews | 16 | 85 | 997 | 11.7 | 8 | 232.7 | 16 |
2014 | Jordan Matthews | 16 | 67 | 872 | 13.0 | 8 | 202.2 | 25 |
2013 | Riley Cooper | 16 | 47 | 835 | 17.8 | 8 | 184.3 | 31 |
2014 | Riley Cooper | 16 | 55 | 577 | 10.5 | 3 | 130.7 | 60 |
2013 | Jason Avant | 16 | 38 | 447 | 11.8 | 2 | 94.7 | 76 |
2015 | Josh Huff | 15 | 27 | 312 | 11.6 | 3 | 76.2 | 89 |
2015 | Riley Cooper | 16 | 21 | 327 | 15.6 | 2 | 65.7 | 94 |
2015 | Nelson Agholor | 13 | 23 | 283 | 12.3 | 1 | 57.3 | 101 |
2015 | Miles Austin | 11 | 13 | 224 | 17.2 | 1 | 41.4 | 123 |
Those teams also had Zach Ertz, at the start of his career, and he had a couple of productive seasons for Kelly, ranking 9th and 13th at the tight end position.
CHIP KELLY'S TIGHT ENDS | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year | Player | G | No | Yards | Ag | TD | PPR | Rk |
2015 | Zach Ertz | 15 | 75 | 853 | 11.4 | 2 | 172.3 | 9 |
2014 | Zach Ertz | 16 | 58 | 702 | 12.1 | 3 | 146.2 | 13 |
2013 | Brent Celek | 16 | 32 | 502 | 15.7 | 6 | 118.2 | 20 |
2013 | Zach Ertz | 16 | 36 | 469 | 13.0 | 4 | 106.9 | 23 |
2015 | Brent Celek | 16 | 27 | 398 | 14.7 | 3 | 84.8 | 29 |
2014 | Brent Celek | 16 | 32 | 340 | 10.6 | 1 | 72.0 | 30 |
This team is close to blank slate right now. Let’s see who they bring in to build around. Most notably, are the drafting a quarterback or signing one? I’m not crazy about the division, with the Broncos, Chargers and Kansas City maybe all having top-10 defenses. But the outlook looks improved with Kelly running the offense.
—Ian Allan