The Las Vegas Raiders have to be feeling mostly good about the fact that they landed Klint Kubiak as their head coach. He was one of the top candidates in this year’s cycle and is fresh off a Super Bowl win calling plays for the Seattle Seahawks.
He’s clearly a strong offensive mind, but being a head coach is a very different job. Kubiak is a very serious person, and all the reports out of OTAs are that he’s “all ball.” He even made Raiders players earn the right to have the team’s decal on their helmets.
This is much different than the last two head coaches. Both Antonio Pierce and Pete Carroll are coaches who really like to create a fun environment. That clearly didn’t work for the team. Kubiak’s style has been much closer to Josh McDaniels, who was fired by the Raiders before finishing two seasons.
There is some concern that Kubiak might be too similar to McDaniels when it comes to style. However, Raiders beat writer Vincent Bonsignore isn’t buying the comparison.
“No, I wouldn’t [say they are similar] and the reason I say that is what I’m getting behind the scenes type of stuff. They are two different people,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s “Morning Tailgate.”
McDaniels Was Doomed From the Start
McDaniels was always going to have a hard time with the Raiders. The backlash to his hiring was instantaneous. Fans have had the opposite reaction to the Kubiak hiring.
“This will not go over well, but I still feel like, you know, had things just been allowed to play out, who knows what would have happened with Josh McDaniels as the head coach,” Bonsignore said.
“I will say this, it just felt off from the very beginning. There wasn’t a lot of support for him among Raider Nation. There’s a lot of fans who just didn’t like the Patriots connection. They didn’t like what necessarily happened in Denver. It just, it felt off… There was never a honeymoon period for Josh here.”
Not Fair to Compare Kubiak to McDaniels
The biggest reason why Raiders shouldn’t be worried about Kubiak being the next McDaniels is that fact that he’s proven he can have success in multiple places. McDaniels has never sniffed success away from the New England Patriots.
Even when he was the offensive coordinator for the Rams, they had one of the worst offenses in the NFL. Kubiak doesn’t know just one way how to do things. He’s learned from coaches like Mike Macdonald, Mike Zimmer, Kyle Shanahan and his father Gary Kubiak.
Just because he’s very serious doesn’t mean the players are going to revolt against him. Shanahan, Bill Belichick and even Macdonald aren’t the most warm and friendly personalities. What matters is that he can call plays, build a great coaching staff and keep the team motivated throughout the season. If he can do those things, he’s going to have success in Las Vegas. Once the Raiders prove they can win, perhaps Kubiak will lighten up a bit.
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