If the Las Vegas Raiders are going to win a lot more games during the 2025 NFL season than they did a year ago, they need to field an offense that is not an active detriment. Fortunately, things cannot be much worse than they were during the 2024 campaign.
Head coach Pete Carroll definitely has an offensive philosophy he favors, to the point that it led to a catch phrase when he was Seattle Seahawks' head coach --"Let Russ Cook." This effectively meant that he should have let quarterback Russell Wilson throw the ball more.
Carroll plucked Chip Kelly from the college ranks to be his offensive coordinator in Las Vegas. Kelly made a bold decision to leave his post as UCLA head coach to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State in 2024. After the Buckeyes made a run to a national title last season, he's back in the NFL after nearly a decade away.
Bold Chip Kelly prediction for Raiders would be equally good and bad
It's fair to assume that Kelly has evolved as a coach since he was last in the NFL. Surely, he has learned valuable lessons from his experiences, and he has shown an adaptability he did not previously have. His offensive philosophies have also bloomed at the college level since then.
Part of ESPN's previews for each NFL team going into the season includes a bold prediction from analyst Seth Walder. When it comes to the Raiders, Walder acknowledged how his bold prediction is not technically for 2025.
"(Chip) Kelly will be an NFL head coach in 2026," Walder wrote. "OK, technically that isn't a bold prediction for 2025, but there's no way Kelly will land another head coaching job unless his Raiders offense in 2025 does well. Once it does, owners will zoom out and look at that, his success at Ohio State, his time as UCLA's head coach and parts of his previous NFL tenure and think: That's a pretty good résumé!"
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A Raiders coordinator being poached by another NFL team would be a new thing. In fact, it has never happened in the franchise's illustrious history. But it would be the product of success, which is also unfamiliar territory, and this is what Walder is predicting for the Raiders' offense this year.
The obvious residual of Kelly possibly becoming a head coaching candidate is whether he even wants to entertain those opportunities. It's possible, at 61 years old now, that he's content to just be an offensive coordinator for the rest of his coaching career. After all, he just left a head coaching job at UCLA for a play-calling position at Ohio State.
If the Raiders' offense is really good this year, that will be a great thing and, of course, better than the alternative. But it would invite the prospect of losing Kelly, and Carroll having to replace him after just one year would not be ideal, even if it means success in 2025.