The Las Vegas Raiders pulled off a big surprise when they hired Chip Kelly as their offensive coordinator. He was in the mix for the job last year under Antonio Pierce but wasn't thought of as a top candidate this time around due to his success at Ohio State.
However, he's now joining forces with Pete Carroll, who is a coach he knows well. The two used to battle when Carroll was the head coach at USC and Kelly was the head coach at Oregon. That's where Carroll was able to earn Kelly's respect as a coach.
"I've got great respect from when I coached against him my first year in the Pac-10 — and I did say Pac-10, that's how long ago it was," Kelly said during his Wednesday introductory press conference. "I think everybody in the coaching profession, if you get a chance to work with Pete Carroll, you're pretty excited about it."
As somebody with a history of winning and a lot of experience as a head coach, it has to feel better to work under somebody like Carroll than an inexperienced head coach. There's no doubt who is running the show.
It's hard to imagine Pierce would've been able to command the same level of respect. It's hard to know how Kelly will do in this new role. He hasn't coached at the NFL level in nearly a decade and has never been a coordinator in the pros.
That said, the man knows offense and as long as he's willing to adapt his schemes, the Raiders may finally have a very strong coaching staff in place.