The real reason the Raiders abruptly cut ties with Chip Kelly is sending shockwaves through the locker room. DH

After yet another dismal game by their offense, the Las Vegas Raiders relieved Chip Kelly of his duties as the team’s offensive coordinator.

After losing their ninth game in 10 tries, Pete Carroll and the Las Vegas Raiders decided to move on from Chip Kelly as their offensive coordinator. There is plenty of blame to go around for the Raiders’ 2-9 start to the season. Injuries, poor execution, and more could fairly be blamed.

“I spoke with Chip Kelly earlier this evenin and informed him of his release as offensive coordinator of the Raiders. I would like to thank Chip for his serve and wish him all the best in the future,” Raiders head coach Pete Carroll said in a statement.

However, the Raiders’ biggest issues surprisingly came on the offensive side of the ball. Las Vegas invested heavily in their offense this season, using multiple draft picks to add Geno Smith, Ashton Jeanty, two rookie wide receivers and two rookie offensive linemen.

Failure to Meet Expectations

The Raiders suffered injuries to their best offensive talent from the very start of the season. Brock Bowers was hurt in Week 1, Kolton Miller and Jackson Powers-Johnson shortly after that. Those three injuries alone are injuries this Raiders roster was simply not built to sustain.

It would be unfair to Chip Kelly not to acknowledge those things. Kelly, nor anyone else could have foreseen those things happening, let alone so early in the season. Kelly spent the whole offseason building an offense around Bowers, only to lose him after one half of football.

Injuries to Miller and Powers-Johnson, the Raiders’ two best offensive linemen, ruined the entire Raiders offense for the entire season. Significant injuries to a flawed roster undoubtedly hamstrung Kelly this season.

Other things did as well, such as the Raiders’ inability to develop any of their rookie offensive talent. Jack Bech, Dont’e Thornton, Caleb Rogers and Charles Grant have barely played at all this season. This Raiders roster could not afford to essentially have no input from four of their top draft picks.

The injuries to the offensive line rendered Smith and Jeanty ineffective, and the offense unwatchable. All of these things are true and put Kelly in a challenging position. However, he also had many missteps in how he handled that challenging situation.

It is every coordinator’s job to work with what they have been given. Raiders Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham has been doing it for the Raiders for four seasons and has usually done so with one of the lowest-paid defenses in the National Football League, with or without injuries.

It is not always pretty and they have off games, but Graham’s defense comes to play more times than not. That is all that was required of Kelly and he could not deliver. Offensive struggles amid a slew of injuries to the offense’s best players is understandable.

No one could fault the Raiders’ offense for not being good without their best players on the field for much of the season. Yet, there is no excuse for the Raiders offense to look as bad as they have for much of this season.

The unit has regressed from last season’s 4-13 season and has done so with much more talent added to it on paper, than what it had last season. For this season’s offense to look worse than last season’s with more talent on it, even after injuries, is on the offensive coordinator.

Kelly’s job was to find the best way to get the most out of the talent the Raiders had on the roster. For the Raiders to be 2-9, have the worst offense in the league and apparently have little to no use for Bech, Thornton, Rogers, Grant, Michael Mayer, or Tre Tucker is on the offensive coordinator.

Raiders Head Coach Pete Carroll has many things to worry about but it is not his job to figure out to run Kelly’s offense. Kelly made a number of mistakes in his brief stint with the Raiders, but a long list of terrible outings warranted his dismissal.

Bad results from a bad roster are understandable, but the Raiders‘ offense under Kelly was worse than bad. They were the worst offense in the league.