After eight years away from the NFL, Chip Kelly is back.
Kelly was hired by the Las Vegas Raiders to be their offensive coordinator under new head coach Pete Carroll, CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz reports. With the Raiders, Kelly will be the highest-paid coordinator in the NFL at $6 million per year, according to Sports Illustrated.
The hire is Kelly’s first foray into the NFL since the San Francisco 49ers fired him as head coach after the 2016 season. This will be Kelly’s first coordinator job in the NFL, as he only held league positions as a head coach — three with the Philadelphia Eagles and one with the 49ers.
Kelly, 61, had stops as the head coach at UCLA and offensive coordinator at Ohio State before returning to the NFL. The former NFL head coach rose back into prominence with the Buckeyes this past season, helping Ohio State win its first national championship since 2014 — the first season of the 12-team expanded College Football Playoff.
A head coach at Oregon for four years before being lured by the NFL by the Eagles in 2013, Kelly went 46-7 at Oregon before bringing his innovative offense into the NFL. He took the Eagles into the playoffs in his first year as a head coach, but never returned in the two years since or his one year with the 49ers.
Kelly went 28-35 in four seasons as a head coach in the NFL, having a top-five offense in points and yards per game twice (2013 and 2014 with the Eagles).
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Kelly pulled a power play to gain full control of personnel with the Eagles in 2015, and was fired from Philadelphia after a losing season with just one game to play that year. His offense bottomed out in his one year with the 49ers, ranking 27th in points per game and 32nd in yards per game before being let go by San Francisco.
Kelly coached the Bruins for seven years and led UCLA to a 35-34 record before leaving to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State in 2024. The offense was 14th in the country in scoring (35.7 points per game), including 36.3 points per game in the playoffs.
Kelly’s return to the NFL will be intriguing, given how long he’s been away from the league and has never been a coordinator at the NFL level. He’s expected to have the keys to the offense as he returns to the west coast.
