News: Kliff Kingsbury withdraws name from Raiders offensive coordinator search, per report

Raiders OC search is back on

On Thursday, reports were that former Arizona Cardinals head coach and USC offensive analyst Kliff Kingsbury would become the Las Vegas Raiders’ next offensive coordinator. However, two days later, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that Kingsbury has withdrawn his name from consideration for the Raiders’ OC opening.

Obviously, this is a surprising twist as The Athletic’s Vic Tafur tweeted/posted on X that Kingsbury was hired based on the conversations that he and new head coach Antonio Pierce discussed about the direction of Las Vegas’ offense. Tafur also noted that an agreement was in place and the Raiders thought Kingsbury was the “most creative” of those interviewed and were excited about joining forces.

However, the former Texas Tech coach apparently had a change of heart and will be taking his ‘Air Raid’ system elsewhere. According to Peter Schrager, contract negotiations became “undone” in the last 24 hours and Kingsbury let the Raiders know he wouldn’t be joining the team on Friday.

Before the reports about Kingsbury joining the Silver and Black, Luke Getsy, Chip Kelly, Alex Van Pelt, Thad Lewis and Mike Sullivan were the other remaining top candidates. Van Pelt is headed to New England but the other four are still available. It’s worth noting that the Raiders recently hired Kelly’s running backs coach at UCLA, DeShaun Foster.

Another name to keep an eye out for is Hue Jackson, who reportedly interviewed for an offensive staff position, per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, and has connections to Marvin Lewis, Pierce’s mentor who was recently hired as assistant head coach.