HENDERSON, Nev. — Flanked by six of the greatest players to ever star in the NFL, new Raiders coach Klint Kubiak was clearly out of his element Tuesday at Intermountain Health Performance Center.<\/p>\n
Not because he isn’t deserving of being a head coach, all evidence to the contrary after serving as offensive coordinator for the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n
It was his timidness, and humbleness, and honesty, and palpable nature – an innocence, if you will – that set him apart from most coaches at their introductory press conference.<\/p>\n
No bravado and nothing robotic about his answers. This was all new to him – hence him being out of his element – but that’s what made it even better.<\/p>\n
Kubiak was as real as it gets, sitting center stage as the 25th coach of one of the most storied franchises in NFL history.<\/p>\n
“I grew up, obviously, watching a lot of Broncos football … going against the Raiders twice a year, and the grit of this franchise sticks out,” said Kubiak, whose father, Gary, served in many coaching capacities in Denver during his career. “When you hear the ‘Autumn Wind’ as a Raider, I can hear that in my mind growing up watching NFL Films and seeing these guys next to me play.<\/p>\n
“Seeing Howie Long and Jim Plunkett, it’s pretty powerful to be sitting up here with you guys, and I just want you to know that those values that you guys played with, that’s what we’re going to play with.”<\/p>\n
Joining those two legends, along with general manager John Spytek, were Charles Woodson, Marcus Allen, Michael Haynes and Rich Gannon.<\/p>\n
Kubiak was clearly in awe during a press conference he didn’t need “to win,” as many people always say is a necessity.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s a history of Hall of Fame players here. There\u2019s a history of Super Bowls,” Kubiak said. “And that\u2019s what the ultimate goal is. But you have to be about the work if you want to get there. I guarantee you that myself and our staff, we\u2019re going to be about the work. And we\u2019re going to be very collaborative with the personnel staff, the coaching staff.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re going to work together so that we\u2019re a connected group. Because connected teams win.”<\/p>\n
It’s exactly what the Raiders need, as it was a disconnect that led to a league-worst 3-14 season this past season.<\/p>\n
Kubiak also spoke about being a gritty team, like the down-in-the-dirt, physical, nasty championship teams – “the way that they were back in the old days” – \u00a0and that it’ll take the team’s “silent tape.”<\/p>\n
“It’s nothing that we say,” Kubiak said. “It’s what we do on the field, and it’s what the silent tape speaks about our team, how physical we are, our effort, all the little things that win that have nothing to do with scheme.”<\/p>\n
Kubiak, the sixth coach since the team relocated to Las Vegas in 2020, said he understands the importance of sustainability and how there shouldn’t be a seventh anytime soon.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged that earning trust in the building is a daily process, and it’s something he’s always been about, a fondness for earning people’s trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s not just going to happen, me sitting up at a podium,” Kubiak said. “That’s something that’s a process. That’s a process and that’s a great challenge. Yeah, there have been plenty of other coaches, but why not us? Why not this staff? Why not this group of players?<\/p>\n
“If you look at it in the lens of there’s a history of some guys that are in and out of here pretty quick, I look at it as ‘what a great challenge.’ That’s what the NFL is all about, is competing.”<\/p>\n
So, after returning to Seattle to celebrate a Super Bowl championship with the city on Wednesday, he said he’s ready to don silver and black gear and begin his tenure on Thursday.<\/p>\n
And beyond the six legends who flanked the 38-year-old, plus Spytek, he also had the approval of an owner who’s built the current WNBA dynasty – the Las Vegas Aces – and has been trying desperately to bring the Raiders back to respectable status.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to develop because it’s different everywhere,” owner Mark Davis said. “It’s not a cookie-cutter type of thing, as he said. He’s coming to the Raiders now. That’s a different organization than he coached in. There’s 31 (other) teams and he understands that.<\/p>\n
“We’ll see. It’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be exciting.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HENDERSON, Nev. — Flanked by six of the greatest players to ever star in the NFL, new Raiders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2065],"tags":[7,8357,1744,393,2455,2454,88,6,525,23839],"class_list":{"0":"post-744156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-klint-kubiak","10":"tag-las-vegas","11":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","12":"tag-lasvegas","13":"tag-lasvegasraiders","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-raiders","17":"tag-tst-las-vegas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116050365289931441","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}