Once upon a time, Chip Kelly was arguably the hottest coach in all of football at both the college and professional levels. He took the Oregon Ducks football program to another level as a national power, with a 46-7 record over four seasons from 2009 to 2012.
Kelly moved on to the NFL in 2013, becoming the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. The fast-paced offense he ran at Oregon caught the league off guard at first, and the Eagles won the NFC East. Another 10-6 campaign followed in 2014, but the Eagles missed the playoffs.
With one game left in his third season, Kelly was fired. As de facto general manager, the personnel decisions that went wrong were Kelly's undoing in Philadelphia. He moved on to become the San Francisco 49ers' head coach in 2016, and that season could not have gone worse with a 2-14 record.
Chip Kelly may be on unique path to full redemption
So it was back to the college level for Kelly, as he took the head coaching job at UCLA after a year working as an ESPN analyst. His tenure with the Bruins wasn't awful, as he went 35-34 over six seasons and 25-13 over his last three. He then left for the offensive coordinator job at Ohio State.
Last season in Columbus couldn't have gone better, as the Buckeyes won the National Championship. He surely could have kept orchestrating one of the best offenses in the country under Ryan Day for some years to come, but it's hard to turn down a call from Pete Carroll, so Kelly is now back in the NFL as the Las Vegas Raiders' offensive coordinator.
There have been some doubts out there about Kelly's ability in the NFL, but the overall sentiment has been that Kelly has evolved and matured as a coach since his previous four-year stint in the NFL. The Raiders stand to benefit from that growth as he gets another shot in the pros.
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Trevor Sikkema of Pro Football Focus has named five coordinators who could make headlines during the 2025 season, and Kelly is on the list.
"If Kelly can unlock similar production from Geno Smith and light up the scoreboard in Las Vegas, it will make headlines, and his name will once again surface in head coaching conversations," Sikkema wrote.
It's fair to say that Eagles fans, still scarred by his time there, would tell NFL teams to stay far away from Kelly if he becomes a legit head coaching candidate for 2026. But if the Raiders' offense becomes a proficient unit this year, a third shot to be an NFL head coach just might come his way.