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Chip Kelly felt the draw of the NFL. “Obviously, this is the highest league of football,” Kelly said. “The competition is at an all-time high.” During a news conference introducing him as the Las Vegas Raiders’ offensive coordinator on Wednesday, he discussed his return to the league, where he once spent four seasons as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers.
Kelly, who was Ohio State’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach as the Buckeyes won the national championship last season, left for Las Vegas earlier this week. He’ll be the coordinator for Pete Carroll, the newly hired Raiders coach who was a former peer in the then-Pac-10.Before Carroll spent 14 seasons at the helm of the Seattle Seahawks, he led USC, overlapping with Kelly’s time at Oregon.
“I’ve got great respect for him,” Kelly said.Kelly said the opportunity arose in the aftermath of the Buckeyes’ win over Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff final on Jan. 20.“I would only go somewhere where I felt really confident from the ownership to the personnel to the head coach,” Kelly said. “I really felt that when I met with Pete.”
Raiders owner Mark Davis is believed to be committing significant resources to the staff. Sports Illustrated reported Kelly will be the NFL’s highest-paid offensive coordinator. The $6 million annual salary matches what Kelly was due to make as UCLA’s head coach. Kelly left the Bruins last February to become the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator. It was an unconventional move, going from a head-coaching job to coordinator, but it reunited Kelly with Ryan Day, his protégé who was entering a high-stakes season in Columbus.
“The opportunity at Ohio State was an amazing experience,” Kelly said. “To be a small part of that team winning a national championship was really cool, and a chance to watch some players that were amazing and persevered and showed amazing resiliency and get a chance to say they’re champions for the rest of their life, was pretty cool.
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