Las Vegas Raiders coach Klint Kubiak is going into his first season of full cuts as a head coach.
Las Vegas Raiders coach Klint Kubiak is in the middle of a busy working weekend, but he did take some time to offer a final round of comments after finishing his roster evaluation before cutdown day tomorrow.
He started with the overall process, which Kubiak is going through for the first time as a rookie coach in the NFL. He’s been through the drill as an offensive coordinator and a quarterbacks coach, not to mention in several other roles, but this is the first time he’s had to manage the process as a whole.
"You develop relationships with these guys since April and they give you their heart and their soul and all their time, and eventually it comes down to this," Klint Kubiak said Friday morning via video conference in a report from Levi Edwards of Raiders.com.
"But there's also so many examples of guys that have been cut and make practice squads and make a team, or guys that get claimed by other teams, or guys that get cut five times and make 12-year careers. ... You get better and you learn and you fail forward."
One person who hasn’t been failing is veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins. He’s been leading drives and running the offense smoothly, and Cousins has more than justified his coach’s decision to add him as “the adult in the room” rather than try to struggle through the first part of the season with a rookie quarterback.
Kubiak also discussed the Raiders running game, which is now a bit of a work in progress with running back Ashton Jeanty sustaining a serious ankle sprain, although the Raiders do expect to have him in week one against the Miami Dolphins, with Mike Washington Jr. also expecting to play a prominent role after a good preseason.
"I think that they're both going to prepare to play a lot of football and as these games unfold, you react to the game,” Kubiak explained when he was asked about the two backs working in tandem. “I think we got two guys that we're really excited about. ... They just got to make the most of every rep that they get. Not making any promises on percentages of play time.
"It's when you get to the game, sometimes the guy you think is going to have five carries has 20. Sometimes the guy you think is going to be just a scat protection back is in there blocking six-man protection for 20 reps. So, we've got to get ready for them to play in all phases."
