With OTAs booting up, new head coach Klint Kubiak is getting his best look at the Las Vegas Raiders‘ roster yet. There have been some smaller workouts earlier in the offseason, but now the coaching staff really gets to what they’re working with.
Kubiak just won a Super Bowl with a very talented Seattle Seahawks team, so he knows what a championship roster looks like and how it practices. So far, he doesn’t sound overly impressed with what he’s seen from his Raiders players yet. He issued a blunt assessment of what he’s seen from practice.
“Really never pleased. We could always be better,” Kubiak told reporters. “We’re always very critical of ourselves with how can we get the most out of every hour for these players in a positive way and let them know that we are not wasting their time. We put in the work for them to give them productive days. So, I think you’re always trying to improve there.
“We’re off to a solid start. Everyone’s undefeated right now, right? But we know sooner or later that it’s going to get real competitive and we’ve got to find out who’s the guys we can count on in those stressful situations, coaches included.”
Kubiak Has ‘No Fluff’
It’s not a surprise that Kubiak is being very critical early on. He’s a stoic guy who doesn’t show much emotion.
He’s all about football. Left tackle Kolton Miller hasn’t worked with him too long yet, but he noted that the coach doesn’t pull any punches.
“He’s direct. There’s no fluff,” Miller said of Kubiak. “Everything’s straightforward, real with him, and we all appreciate that.”
Cornerback Eric Stokes finds it refreshing. He wants a coach who is going to tell him like it is.
“It’s great because you already know coming into it, like it doesn’t matter how the thing goes, whatever goes, you [can] be you,” Stokes said. “And that’s what you always want from a coach. I don’t need a roller coaster, I don’t need any of that. You just be you, everything else going to happen, but as long as you stay calm, as long as you stay neutral, everything else good.”
Kubiak Making Players Work for Their Shields
Many noted that Raiders players didn’t have the team logo on their helmets after the first practices. That’s because Kubiak is making players earn them. He wants them to prove that they deserve to represent the Silver and Black.
“[I]f we can uphold the standard that we put in front of these players in our team meeting,” Kubiak said, “if our conditioning level is where it needs to be, if we can practice the right way, if we can handle our business outside of the building and we can represent the shield the right way, then we’ll put it back on.”
Normally, this might come off as gimmicky, but Kubiak isn’t a gimmicky kind of guy. He truly believes in the message that he’s preaching. It’ll mean a lot more when players get their decal on their helmets now that they have to work for it.
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