Klint Kubiak Garnering Praise Amid Raiders’ Resurgence

The Raiders took a chance on a first-time head coach when they hired Klint Kubiak this past offseason. Through four games, it is looking like a hire that will turn the franchise around. 

ESPN’s Bill Barnwell picked his award winners across the NFL after the first four games of the season. Kubiak snagged the early season Coach of the Year honor. 

“What Kubiak has done to immediately rejuvenate the Raiders’ offense has been incredible. With a subpar offensive line on paper, Kubiak’s scheme — with its zone run game and heavy play-action rate — has mitigated the individual weaknesses of the linemen the Raiders are lining up on a weekly basis. DJ Glaze, a liability in pass protection last year, suddenly looks like a high-end right tackle. Kirk Cousins, benched in Atlanta for chunks of the past two seasons, is 13th in the NFL in QBR through two weeks,” Barnwell wrote of the Raiders’ head coach. 

Last season Las Vegas finished 3-14. It took Kubiak all of three weeks to match that win total. But Kubiak’s chances for Coach of the Year may be decided in the coming weeks. 

“The Raiders are in the most difficult stretch of their season, having just lost to the Chiefs and with games against the Patriots, Bills, Rams, 49ers, Seahawks and Broncos ahead over the next two months. Beating the Chiefs would have been a feather in Kubiak’s cap, especially after the first-year coach said that the team was going to win to the television broadcast during halftime, but he clearly has Raiders fans believing that something has changed. If he can keep the Raiders in the playoff hunt during this brutal stretch of opponents, the 39-year-old isn’t going to fall too far in these rankings,” Barnwell wrote. 

If the Raiders miss the playoffs with a losing record, it would be hard to imagine Kubiak winning any awards. An 8-9 record would be a massive improvement on last season, but probably not enough to warrant the claim of best coaching job in the NFL. 

If Las Vegas can piece together a few wins against their toughest stretch of games, Kubiak will have a great shot at winning Coach of the Year and the Raiders could find themselves in the playoffs. 

The amazing part for the Raiders is that this was supposed to be the first year of a rebuild. Las Vegas didn’t want to rush first-overall pick Fernando Mendoza, so they signed a stopgap quarterback in Kirk Cousins. That was not a win-now move, but one done for the future, for Mendoza’s career. 

But so far it has worked extremely well and may have the Raiders trying to accelerate their process to keep up with Kubiak’s success.