Las Vegas Raiders coach Klint Kubiak is facing the challenges of being a rookie coach, and he talked about the biggest.
Las Vegas Raiders coach Klint Kubiak has faced a variety of challenges so far, and he’s met them all head on. Kubiak hasn’t talked about many of them specifically, but he did get into some big ones in a piece from Mike Jones of The Athletic that featured a roundtable discussion involving fellow rookie coaches Mike LaFleur, Jesse Minter, Joe Brady, Todd Monken and Jeff Hafley.
Kubiak mostly looked forward when he was asked about making the jump to head coach and juggling the challenges that come with it.
“It’s been a great challenge, but I think the biggest challenge is ahead,” Kubiak said, “and that’s managing the game and managing the game plan throughout the week. So that’s to be seen.”
The hiring has been a mix-and-match process for Kubiak, and that’s often the case for new coaches. Some get to bring in a new staff and make wholesale changes, but Kubiak elected to go with both new hires and holdovers.
“The offseason itself, I got to hire so many really great people that I trust, and that makes life a whole lot easier,” he said. “From my offensive coordinator (Andrew Janocko), a guy that I’ve worked with a ton, our special teams coordinator (Joe DeCamillis), who I’ve worked with before.”
The most noteworthy holdover his Rob Leonard, who coached the defensive line last year under now-fired Pete Carroll. Leonard has preached an attacking approach so far, but one thing that became clear in Thursday’s 27-14 loss to the Arizona Cardinals is that there’s still a lot of work to do on the defensive side of the ball.
“Our defensive coordinator is a guy that I’m now learning,” Kubiak stated. “But I trust them, and I think just having the people on staff that you can lean on is what has been really helpful, because there is so much work to get done, and definitely too much for one person.”
Kubiak was also asked about the best advice he’s gotten so far, and that question was a softball for him given that his father, Gary Kubiak, was a long-time coach who also had a career mostly as a backup quarterback.
“That would be from my dad, who has told me throughout my whole career, ‘It will get done,’” he explained. “You don’t always know what’s coming and you may not have enough time in the day to get to a thing. But, he said, “It’ll get done,” and he worked with Mike McCoy (my assistant head coach) for a lot of years in Denver, and he told Mike the same thing.
“It’s been a really good piece of advice, honestly, because you look at a list of things to do, and you just kind of attack it one at a time, knowing that in the end, it’s gonna get done. We’re gonna play these games and kick the ball off whether you’re ready or not. So that’s what’s always stuck with me.”
