Kelly’s history with TEs indicates big season for both Bowers and Mayer

Raiders new offensive coordinator leaned heavily on 12 personnel during his time in the NFL

The Las Vegas Raiders have a new offensive coordinator in Chip Kelly who inherits an offense with a handful of young talented players, including tight ends Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer.

When the Raiders selected Bowers during the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft, a year after using a second-round pick on Mayer, the organization had visions of an offense that leaned heavily on 12 personnel and two productive tight ends. However, that didn’t come to fruition last fall.

Granted, Mayer’s absence in the middle of the season played a big factor. But even when he was in the lineup, Las Vegas struggled to get both tight ends the rock. That could be part of the reason why Kelly was new head coach Pete Carroll’s pick to run the offense as Kelly has a good history of getting production from two players at the position in the NFL.

Eagles

During his time as the Philadelphia Eagles head coach, Kelly became known for drafting Pac-12 (R.I.P.) players. For example, his second selection in Philadephia was former Stanford tight end Zach Ertz. But the Eagles already had a productive tight end in Brent Celek, who was coming off a season where he had nearly 60 catches and 700 yards.

Regardless, Kelly found a way for both tight ends to be productive during his three years with the Birds. From 2013 to 2015, Ertz caught 126 passes for 2,019 yards and nine touchdowns while Celek had 91 grabs, 1,240 and 10 scores. That comes out to averages of about 42/673/3 for Ertz and 30/413/3 for Celek.

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From a usage standpoint, Ertz lined up as either a slot or wide receiver on 55.9 percent and 54.5 percent of his pass snaps in 2013 and 2014, respectively, while Celek was an in-line tight end 66.4 percent, 75.0 percent and 76.6 percent of the time under Kelly, per Pro Football Focus.

Granted, there is one outlier here. Ertz was aligned as a receiver on just 36.6 percent of snaps in 2015.

Expect Kelly to use Bowers similarly to Ertz while Mayer can fill the role Celek played in the offensive-minded coach’s system. To make that connection even stronger, Celek was known as a good run blocker throughout his career, similar to how Mayer is viewed, and the former Eagle recorded PFF run-blocking grades of 80.0, 84.4 and 75.6 under Kelly.

49ers

Kelly’s tenure as the San Francisco 49ers lasted only one year (2016) as it was highly unsuccessful with the team going just 2-14. However, he did manage to get production out of two tight ends.

Vance McDonald and Garrett Celek (Brent’s brother) were the team’s third- and fourth-leading receivers, respectively. The former posted a stat line of 24/391/4, and the latter at 29/350/3. Yes, those numbers aren’t exactly eye-catching, but remember, this was an ugly roster. Jeremy Kerley led the team at 64/667/3.

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What’s interesting about Kelly’s offense with the 49ers compared to his time with the Eagles is both McDonald and Celek were used as in-line tight ends on over 70 percent of their pass snaps, according to PFF. That was likely because Kelly wanted to lean heavily on two-tight end formations with a running quarterback in Colin Kaepernick.

Something that should pique Bowers’ interest is that McDonald averaged 8.7 yards per catch under Kelly, the second-highest of his career. Additionally, Brent Celek had a personal-best 8.6 YAC/reception in 2013, and Ertz has been over 4.0 YAC/reception four times in his 12-year career, three of which came under Kelly.

UCLA

Obviously, UCLA isn’t the pros. Also, Kelly never had a season where two or more tight ends were notably productive at the same time as the Bruins’ head coach. However, his time in Westwood does speak well for his ability to develop the position.

In 2018, Kelly’s first season at UCLA, Caleb Wilson led the team with 60 catches for 965 yards and four touchdowns before becoming a seventh-round pick by the Arizona Cardinals the following March. Then, Devin Asiasi had 44 grabs, 641 yards and four touchdowns and was a third-round pick of the New England Patriots the following year. From 2020 to 2021, Greg Dulchich logged 68 catches, 1,242 yards and 10 touchdowns in 19 games which was good enough to become a third-round selection by the Denver Broncos.

Kelly also had two tight ends drafted during his tenure at Oregon, including Ed Dickson, who was the Baltimore Ravens‘ 70th overall selection in 2010. Clearly, he knows how to utilize the position and get the most out of it.