Every NFL team is looking for the ingredients within its organization to create some form or fashion of an advantage over the rest of the league.
New Raiders head coach Pete Carroll might have found an avenue that can create an advantage for Las Vegas.
Eight members of Carroll’s inaugural coaching staff in Las Vegas make their way to the Raiders from the college ranks. Carroll said that was by design and it should help Las Vegas in its 2025 NFL draft evaluations.
“It’s a really good point that you’re observing. The guys coming out of college football have a connection with the players, and not just the ones on their own teams, but the players that they’ve been playing against, the guys they’ve seen through recruiting.
“They’ve known these kids that are playing for years, and so in this draft in particular, and as it affected us when we started in Seattle, we really hit it in the middle to lower round picks, because I think we had better intel than maybe guys that hadn’t had that opportunity to connect to college. So it’s important to me to try to mix that. If you notice, we’ve been able to do that some. So it’s a real benefit,” Carroll said.
Carroll and the Raiders brought in Chip Kelly as the franchise’s new offensive coordinator. Kelly was the offensive coordinator at Ohio State in 2024, helping guide the Buckeyes to the national championship.
Kelly previously spent three years as the Philadelphia Eagles‘ head coach from 2013-15 and one as the San Francisco 49ers‘ head coach in 2016.
Carroll and the Raiders also added Sean Binckes as an offensive assistant, Brennan Carroll as its run game coordinator and offensive line coach, Kyle Fuller as its offensive quality control coach, Deland McCullough as its running backs coach, Ty McKenzie as its defensive assistant and linebackers coach, Beyah Rasool as its defensive quality control coach and Rowan as a defensive assistant.
Binckes spent 2024 as a graduate assistant at Ohio State, Carroll as the offensive coordinator at the University of Washington, Fuller as the assistant offensive line coach at Appalachian State, McCullough as the Notre Dame run game coordinator and running backs coach, McKenzie as a defensive analyst for North Carolina, Rasool as a Florida quality control coach and Rowan as Georgia Southern’s defensive line coach.
The Raiders own eight selections in the 2025 NFL draft, including the No. 6 overall selection.