The Raiders made a lot of mistakes last year, and most would agree that allowing Pete Carroll to hire his son as his offensive line coach was one of them.
Brennan Carroll didn’t do much to raise his stock as a football coach in his one year in Las Vegas, and most would agree he was never qualified to be an offensive line coach at the NFL level.
A year later, though, the Raiders signed up for another form of nepotism… this time hiring the son of former Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak.
But the story of Klint Kubiak is nothing like Brennan Carroll, and there is a reason he was the hottest head coaching candidate in the league nine months ago.
On the Colin Cowherd Podcast this week, John Middlekauff explained how the Raiders signed up for the good kind of nepotism by hiring a coach who had the privilege of learning from some of the best offensive coaches in the NFL, including his dad.
These were Middlekauff’s comments about Kubiak on Tuesday…
“Last year was much closer to like Freddie Kitchens and Jim Tomsula going on from the stories I’ve heard with the Raiders. Like it was Belichick level embarrassing, the stuff internally going on. I don’t think Pete is malicious… I think Bill can be. They’re different personalities, but Pete puts on a smile sometimes and you got some of the stuff going on behind the scenes. It’s like, Pete, how are you allowing this to happen?
To go from that to go to Kubiak, who you see him, he looks young, like if you’re listening to Klint talk, he’s very serious, a lot like his dad, not much personality. I don’t think he has BS’ed with many people around the halls. Gary was a lot like that. Not really the life of the party. All about football all the time. And from what I’ve heard, [Klint] is pulling Belichick hours…
Sometimes, we hear this, the nepotism. Sometimes it works. When the Kubiaks and the Shanahans are around their dads at four or five years old, and they know the offense that takes the league by storm like the back of their hand, and they’re into it, and they’re talented. Yeah, their ceiling is a little bit higher than the guy that just starts learning the offense at 25 years old.”
Raiders have finally found their rockstar head coach…
The criticism of Kubiak nine months ago was that some believed he might not have the personality to lead an NFL locker room.
From the outside, Kubiak doesn’t have a big personality, but his “all ball” mentality has certainly resonated with the Raiders in his short time with the team.
Kubiak’s no-nonsense approach has led to the Raiders being one of the most disciplined teams in the league and accomplishing something to start the season that is unprecedented by the organization.
The most disciplined team in the NFL this year might end up being… the Raiders?
x: @raidersbeat