Earlier in the month, Raiders rookie running back Ashton Jeanty noted in an interview that offensive coordinator Chip Kelly wanted him to change his running back stance.
Playing in college, Jeanty famously stood straight up in the backfield before the ball was snapped. Jeanty said Kelly wanted him to get lower, bending his knees a bit. Jeanty noted that Kelly likened it to playing basketball.
Kelly was asked about Jeanty and his stance in his Thursday press conference, and claimed that the stance message was delivered a little differently.
“Let’s get that clarified,” Kelly said, via transcript from the team. “Deland McCullough, our running back coach, is in charge of stances, steps, alignments, assignments, and techniques. So he talked to him about that. I gave him an analogy of an athlete being in a bent-knee position to make a play, and that kind of got blown into. I haven’t told anybody on this team to be in any stances because I don’t coach a position. But it’s a bent-knee game.
“[I]f you look at the before the ball snapped in baseball, or the pitcher throwing the baseball, everybody’s got their knees bent. In any athletic sport you’re playing, you’ve got to bend your knees. And if you’ve got to run a flat route on Fred Warner, you’d better be in a position to run, because that dude can fly. So, all we’re trying to do is put guys in positions to make plays.”
Kelly added that it’s only about three inches and Jeanty has adapted really well.
“So, I really don’t think it’s that big a deal,” Kelly said. “But he’s awesome, and he’s such a coachable guy that you can do a lot of things with him. I think he can play in the slot, he can play in the backfield, he can do a lot of different things. So, he’s special.”
Kelly noted that Jeanty is as talented as any back he’s seen entering the NFL.
“His ability to sustain runs after contact, his contact balance is kind of a really rare quality,” Kelly said. “He’s got a low center of gravity, and I think it’s tough to get him down, and normally the first guy doesn’t.
“I think sometimes you get caught up in just looking at the numbers, but I think it was like 35 missed tackles he created in the Penn State game. Now, Penn State’s defense, we played against them [at Ohio State], they’re outstanding. That was a little bit different league for Boise at that time, but not for Ashton in terms of what he did. So, excited to see him.”