The Las Vegas Raiders are sitting on a 1-4 record through the first five games of the season and quarterback Geno Smith, who they traded for this past offseason, has really struggled not to throw interceptions.
However, head coach Pete Carroll hasn’t made a move to bench Smith, and instead hinted that he wants to see better playcalling from offensive coordinator Chip Kelly.
“We have to run the football better, more,” Carroll said. “And we’re going to continue to work at it and see if we can’t continue to bring it to life. The running game has looked well in order right now, we need to get more of them. That’s part of it.
“That’s just mixing football. That’s how you do it. We don’t ever want to rely on the quarterback has to do the whole show, sitting in the shotgun, throw the football. Never coach that way. So we have to mix our stuff so we can use our play action game.”
Caroll believes rookie running back Ashton Jeanty has the talent to make the plays if given the opportunities.
“I was pleased with how we saw Ashton come to life on the edge,” Carroll said. “He made some nice plays and stretched the defense and put some threat on them with that. And we’ve got to make sure that we’re calling all the best stuff in the situations. He’s not calling the plays. We’ve got to call them and we’ve got to make sure and get him in the right spots and give him the best chance to stay out of harm’s way. Part of that is really controlling the game with what we do in front in the running game.”
Unsurprisingly, Kelly was defensive of his playcalling.
“That’s what our game plan is every game,” Kelly said, via Pro Football Talk. “We had 25 [rushing] attempts last week in the game, there was real balance in the first half of the football game when it was a close game. I think it gets out of hand so you look at some of the numbers, I think we had 25 rushing attempts and 36 pass attempts at the end of the game, but the first half it was really even.”
Fans reacted to the two coaches on social media.
“I think Pete Carrolls just covering (himself). It’s his career on the line. Literally,” one fan wrote on Twitter.
“Draft a RB in 1st round and have interception machine at QB.stay balance you loser named chip,” someone else added.
“-56 point differential says otherwise, Chip,” another fan added.
It’ll be intersting to see if the Raiders can get things turne around this season.