The Las Vegas Raiders' new leadership tandem of Pete Carroll and John Spytek brought in Chip Kelly this offseason to be their new play-caller. Luke Getsy served in the same role a year prior but was fired and replaced after the bye week in 2024 due to a lack of offensive production.
While Getsy was not necessarily dealt a great hand with Gardner Minshew and Aidan O'Connell being his quarterbacks, or Zamir White and Alexander Mattison being his running back tandem, the veteran coordinator failed to raise the level of the group.
One of the chief complaints about Getsy and his play-calling was his decision-making in the red zone. Not only did he have a stark imbalance when it came to running versus throwing the ball, but star tight end Brock Bowers only got six red zone targets in nine games under his watch.
Red zone woes continue for Raiders' offense under Chip Kelly
The hope was that things would change drastically under Kelly this season, as he led the Ohio State offense to incredible scoring and yardage marks en route to a national championship last season. But through two games, he has failed to get the group going, especially in the most critical area of the field.
According to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press, Las Vegas has been one of the worst red zone offenses in 2025. Other than the Texans, who have yet to score a touchdown in the red zone on three attempts, the Raiders are tied with the New York Giants for the worst touchdown scoring percentage.
On seven trips, Las Vegas has only scored a single touchdown. That means that they have settled for a field goal or turned the ball over in the red zone six times, which makes it nearly impossible to win big games against tough opponents.
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To make matters worse, on Monday Night Football against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 2, the Raiders ran seven plays in the red zone, but did not run the ball on a single one of them. This kind of imbalance makes things easy to predict, which is way too difficult for an offense in tight spaces.
Bowers, once again, is not being utilized properly either, as he has just one target in two games. Granted, he missed the fourth quarter of Week 1 and was hobbled against the Chargers, but he still deserves more of a look than this.
Kelly is an incredibly bright offensive mind, and his offense certainly has the capability to be among the very best in the league. But he needs to be more creative in the red zone and make sure that he employs the talents of Bowers and Ashton Jeanty, the offense's two best weapons.
Raider Nation shouldn't overreact too much to two games, but it is still disappointing to see this unit not meeting expectations. Luckily, they have 15 weeks to right the ship and prove that these last two weeks were an exception, not the rule.