Podcast: Everything We Saw from Las Vegas Riaders OTA Practice

As they work through the OTA (Optional Team Activity) process, the Las Vegas Raiders are progressing towards becoming the team coach Pete Carroll envisions them being in 2025.

Our latest Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast episode features the observations of On SI Silver and Black beat writers Hondo S. Carpenter, Sr., and Zeke Trezevant from their inside view of practice.

You can watch the entire podcast below:

The Raiders opened the checkbook this offseason and secured one of the game of football’s best offensive minds in Chip Kelly.

He spoke after yesterday's OTA practice, during which I asked him about his evolving offense and multiple other questions.

You can read a partial transcript of all he said below.

Offensive Coordinator Chip Kelly

Q: Watching all of your film from Oregon to UCLA to the pros and even at Ohio State, it's all different. Is that a story of your evolving or does it go back to what you told us at your first press conference, you adapt to your personnel?

Coach Kelly: "I think you always adapt to your personnel. There's not a system - like you can say, 'Hey, we're gonna do this,' and then if that's not the strength of your players - I think part of the OTA process for us is getting to understand what the strengths of these players are, and then how do you play to those strengths. Some teams are heavy running back laden, some teams are heavy wide out laden, some teams the quarterback is just a drop back guy, but he's not a movement guy. It all depends on who you have personnel wise, and then you try to fit in their strengths into the scheme that you're going to run. And we have a lot of really, really good coaches on our staff. So, it's also a blending of that, like where they came from and what they feel really confident doing, and then really making an evaluation of what each individual group, offensive line, tight ends, running backs, quarterbacks, wide outs do best, and then how do we match that up with a total system and a scheme. Because there's enough out there that we've all done, but the key is matching to our guys strengths and what they do really, really well."

Q: What is Ashton Jeanty's potential in the offense?

Coach Kelly: "I mean, Ashton is as talented at back as a young guy coming in the league that I've seen. He's really special. His ability to sustain runs after contact, his contact balances is kind of a really rare quality. He's got a low center of gravity, and I think it's tough to get him down and normally the first guy doesn't. And you look at all of the tape of his games last year, and it didn't matter who he played, because they obviously played in the Mountain West, but when he played Oregon and he played Penn State, you look at how he performed in those games. And I think sometimes you get caught up in just looking at the numbers, but I think it was like 35 missed tackles he created in the Penn State game. Now, Penn State's defense, we played against them, they're outstanding. That was a little bit different league for Boise at that time, but not for Ashton in terms of what he did. So, excited to see him. It's different, obviously as we know during OTAs, because it's not tackle. We're not taking guys to the ground. I don't think he'll get tackled till we get to our first preseason game, but I'm really excited. The one thing about him is he's a really quick learner. He also had experience there with Dirk Koetter, was his offensive coordinator in his last year. Dirk has been a long time coach in this league, been a head coach in this league, and is a really, really good football guy. So he came in with a good basis and understanding. And so, he's done a great job, really, really excited to work with him. I know everybody in the offensive staff was excited when Spy [John Spytek] made that selection."

We'd appreciate you following us on X @HondoCarpenter and IG @HondoSr and let’s talk about Chip Kelly’s comments.

Tell us what you think about Chip Kelly’s comments when you visit our Facebook page, WHEN YOU CLICK RIGHT HERE.