Chip Kelly’s days as an NFL coach might be over. He’s been fired from all three of his coaching jobs as a pro, and couldn’t hang as the offensive coordinator of the Las Vegas Raiders.
While there’s some debate about whether or not Kelly was even able to run the offense he wanted to in Las Vegas, his skillset is likely better-suited for the college game. He called plays for the National Championship-winning Ohio State Buckeyes last year. He also has a long history as a head coach at Oregon and UCLA. Luckily, it sounds like he might not be unemployed for long.
Kentucky recently fired head coach Mark Stoops after a 5-7 season. According to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, there’s word around the Kentucky building that Kelly is in line to take over as head coach.
“The Raiders may be saving some of the money that would otherwise go to pay former offensive coordinator Chip Kelly’s buyout,” Florio wrote.
“Word is circulating among Kentucky players that Kelly could be the team’s next head coach. That doesn’t mean he will be. It doesn’t even mean he’s an official candidate. It means only that Kentucky players have somehow developed the impression that Kelly could be the new coach.”
Would Kelly Make Sense for Kentucky?
When Kelly left the head coach job at UCLA to be the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, it wasn’t because he was fired. He willingly took a demotion. There’s likely a lot more to the story than what’s been reported, but Kelly claimed that it was because he wanted to get back to just coaching football and not having to worry about all the other things that come with being a head coach.
However, that coordinator’s paycheck is a lot smaller than the head coaching one. It makes sense why Kentucky would be interested. Though they’re in the SEC, they’re considered one of the weakest programs in the conference.
Stoops was given 13 seasons to build a winner, but he only won over seven games three times. Kelly flamed out at UCLA, but perhaps coaching at an SEC school will give him access to more talent. No top program is going to hire Kelly after the UCLA and Raiders disasters, but he should at least make a program like Kentucky interesting.
Raiders Should Be Rooting for Kelly to Get the Job
The Raiders gave Kelly a three-year, $18 million contract when they hired him. That’s fully guaranteed, so they’re on the hook for all that money despite firing him less than one year after signing.
If Kelly takes another job, that could alleviate some of the money the Raiders have to pay him. Considering Pete Carroll could get fired in the offseason, the franchise would likely be happy to save money on Kelly.
It wasn’t a bad idea to give an experienced offensive coordinator a lot of money in the offseason, but they simply picked the wrong guy. If the Raiders decided to give that money to a guy like Klint Kubiak, who knows how the offense would look this season?
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