Philly Front Office

Over the summer, Tom Brady gathered with Mark Davis and devised a plan so devious that the league would never suspect they were losing games on purpose. They would hire an over the hill legend to coach the Raiders while trading real assets and paying real money to have Geno Smith play QB, draft a running back in the first round, and the piece de resistance…bring in Chip Kelly to run the offense. This was all an elaborate plan to get the #1 pick in the draft and start the franchise over. Honestly, that makes sense. If only that’s what actually happened. I mean, all those things DID happen, except the Raiders were trying to win the whole time. (long exhale) Damn.

Let’s go back a year and look at the plan the Raiders had to reset their franchise. Remember, the previous year they hired Antonio Pierce and Tom Telesco as Coach and GM, then fired both after 1 season. With them gone, John Spytek (which is a hilarious name to team with Tom Brady) was brought in as GM. Spytek was Brady’s teammate at Michigan and part of the group that brought him to Tampa as the Bucs Director of Player Personnel. Whether he is qualified or not, I don’t know, but he sure is Brady’s friend.

First Order of Business, Hire Pete Carroll

There is no doubting Carroll’s credentials. He won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks and stayed winning there for almost all of his 14 years. He was fired/mutually agreed to part ways after the 2023 season. After a year off, the Raiders convinced him to become their head coach. There was just one problem, at 73 years old, he would be the oldest coach in NFL history! I’m not trying to be agist here. What I mean is that hiring the oldest coach in NFL history would mean that you are generally trying to win NOW rather than invest in a long-term relationship.

Winning now? With this roster? The 2025 Raiders had exactly three quality players: Rookie dynamo Brock Bowers, LT Kolton Miller, and All Pro Defensive End Maxx Crosby. Miller and Crosby both happened to want new contracts. They had no QB and nothing else to build around.

A guy like Carroll wouldn’t come cheap either. His deal is a reported 3/$45m.

Second – Hire Chip Kelly to Run Your Offense

What does one over the hill coach need? A second, much less successful over the hill offensive coordinator. I’m trying to make fun, but only because that’s all I can do to explain the Chip Kelly hired. Kelly bombed his way out of the NFL after short stints with the Eagles and 49ers. Not only was his gimmicky system quickly flushed out in the pros, but he was also an asshole who was much better at bullying college students instead of grown men. Kelly just won a national championship as the OC for the Ohio State Buckeyes and somehow used this as a platform to become an OC in the pros.

Maybe I am biased because of the Eagles connection, but there is a reason Chip was relegated back to college after his NFL stints. For some reason, the Raiders ignored this. This wasn’t some favor either. They signed the 62-year-old to a 3/$18m contract which made him the highest paid assistant in the NFL. WTF???

Third – Give Out Veteran Extensions

As a rebuilding team with the NFL Draft upcoming, Maxx Crosby should have gone to the highest bidder. He was 27, at the back end of a fair contract, and coming off 3 straight productive seasons. As the Micah Parsons trade showed, there was a healthy market for pass rushers. Let’s say they send him to the Packers for #23 and a 3rd rounder. That would have given the Raiders and their new front office 6 picks in the top 92.

Instead, they gave Crosby a 3/$106.5m extension. The deal is technically moveable, but only if a team can stomach it’s $30m base salaries or the Raiders eat that in a restructure. This was not like the Sauce Gardner and Myles Garrett extensions that make movement not only easy but down right encouraged. Crosby was there to stay.

This also would have been a god time to trade Kolton Miller. They would extend him to a 3/$66m contract in the summer. However, he’s 30 years old and probably could have nabbed a first or second round pick himself. Unfortunately, 30 fits the Raiders imagined window of contention rather than the rebuild they should have proceeded on so he stayed.

Fourth – Bring in Geno Smith to Play QB

Shortly after signing Crosby, the Raiders traded a 3rd round pick, #92, to the Seahawks for Geno Smith. That’s the same Geno Smith who had been fumbling in mediocrity for Seattle for the last 5 years, the Geno Smith that was going to turn 35 during the year, the Geno Smith who Seattle didn’t actually want. Well, Pete Carroll wanted him apparently.

They didn’t just trade for Geno Smith though, they gave him a raise. Instead of playing him under his current $30m salary, they gave him an extension that guaranteed him $40m in 2025 and $26.5m in 2026.

Ok, they needed someone this year, I get it, BUT…

• They didn’t need to trade a 3rd round pick for him. That pick was the one they got from the Packers for the Davante Adams trade, btw.
• A veteran like Smith is not going to take well to Chip Kelly of all people telling him what to do. It doesn’t seem like either was consulted at all about how poorly the two were suited for each other.
• Smith should only be a stop gap with the draft coming up. Honestly, they would have been better off spending a fraction of the price on either of the Giants’ QBs, Russell Wilson or Jameis Winston

Fifth – Draft a Running Back #6 Overall

Come!!! On!!! This was already bad enough bringing in Geno Smith, but now you are going to commit the cardinal sin of over-drafting a running back??? They can’t be serious! They were. No team, let alone a bad team, should draft a running back #6 overall. Ashton Jeanty is good and I have nothing against him, but RBs simply do not have long term value and are of damn near the same quality late in the draft as early. At #6, they could have drafted Armand Membou to be their future LT or maybe Tet McMillan/Emeka Egbuka for a completely destitute receiving corps. Any number of picks would have been more appropriate. Of course in our little hypothetical, they have an extra first as well. Maybe that becomes Jaxson Dart? How about Jihaad Campbell or Josh Simmons? Jeanty is a disaster of a pick.

The rest of the draft is no better. With the 92nd pick that they traded for Smith, the Seahawks took QB project Jalen Milroe. Surely the Raiders took some QB project themselves, right? Well, in the 6th round, they drafted Tommy Mellott out of Montana State and Cam Miller out of North Dakota State. Both were waived and didn’t make the roster. They ended up making 7 selections in the first 4 rounds. You are telling me none of them could have been Shedeur Sanders? None? To come out of this draft without some kind of project QB is malpractice. After all, isn’t that presumably half the reason you hire Chip Kelly, to mold a college QB?

The Master Plan

Looking at the above, this plan had basically no chance of going right. Shockingly, they beat the Patriots the first game of the season but little has gone right since. Since Week 1, they are 1-10 with their only win coming against the Tennessee Titans (which may keep them from drafting #1 overall). Chip Kelly was fired after 11 games. Good thing Mark lit his dad’s money on fire with that one. It is looking more and more likely that Pete Carroll might not make it to Year 2.

What in the hell did they expect??? I know the coach has some say in the personnel decisions, but they put Geno Smith on a talentless roster with a bonehead offensive coordinator and then took a running back with their top draft pick! That’s some 1995-ass nonsense.

In the end, they are just out a ton of money for Pete and Chip and Maxx and Geno and Kolton. They could still trade those guys (well, not Geno) for draft picks, but probably not as good as they could have received when they were a year younger and didn’t have their extensions. In fact, with the moves they could have made, there’s a good chance they would have had a better record right now but the future sure as hell would have been a lot brighter and it wouldn’t be so depressing to be a Raiders fan.