New coach Klint Kubiak of the Las Vegas Raiders made a pair of coaching hires on Friday as he approaches the finish line in finalizing his staff. One is Marquice William, who will be the team’s senior special teams coach, per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, while Omar Young will oversee the running backs room via Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports. The news about the pair was reported by Nikhil Mehta of ProFootball Rumors.com.
Williams has spent the last five years with the Atlanta Falcons as the Falcons special teams coordinator. He survived the team’s coaching change from Arthur Smith to Raheem Morris in 2024, according to Mehta, but Williams wasn’t retained by newly-hired Kevin Stefanski.
Williams’ previous stops include the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Chargers, and he was assistant special teams coach with the last two clubs. His special teams units started out strong in Atlanta, finishing 16th and fourth highest in the league according to Pro Football Focus, but the units fell to the bottom ten in each of the last three seasons.
The special teams coach does have a pair of Pro Bowl players to his credit in Atlanta, having coached long snapper Josh Harris to that event in 2021, with receiver KhaDarel Hodge getting the nod in 2024.
Young is coming up from the collage ranks, but he does have an NFL background as well. He spent last season as Iowa’s running backs coach, where Kamari Moulton led the backfield with just under 80 yards a game and 5.2 yards per carry, according to Mehta.
His previous college stops include San Jose State, Colorado and South Carolina, with his NFL itinerary including stops with the Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots and the Bears.
Young started his career as a special teams coach in 2010, but he transitioned to running backs coach at Eastern Illinois in 2019, and he also became co-special teams coordinator for that school shortly after that.
Young will be part of the effort to unleash Raiders' running back Ashton Jeanty, who had a disappointing season, rushing for just 57.4 yards per game and a per-carry average of 3.7. The Raiders also hired Rick Dennison to coach the offensive line and help boost Jeanty’s productivity, and their ability to do this will play a key role in Kubiak’s success or failure next season, especially since they'll be tryin to develop a rookie quarterback.