The Klint Kubiak era in Las Vegas is off to a 3-0 start and based on everything that’s been shared about Kubiak’s first seven months with the Raiders, the dramatic turnaround hasn’t happened by chance.
In the offseason, there were stories from the building about Kubiak’s unique preparation, and former Raiders linebacker Kirk Morrison shared a story on Monday about how the team feels prepared to win each week.
“The one thing that I would say is this and I got this from Connor Heyward after I think last week’s game. He told me straight up, he said, ‘Man, we’re prepared,'” Morrison said on Raider Nation Radio’s Unnecessary Roughness with Q Myers.
“We are prepared. Yes, we go into every single game and we are prepared. And that is something that going into every game, I feel like this team goes in not saying ‘I hope we win’ or ‘I think we could win.’ It’s like, ‘We are prepared and we know how to win. We know how to get it done. We know what needs to be done and what is being asked of us.’ And that is something that I’m starting to see now through three weeks.”
Kubiak is different than his predecessors with the Raiders
Raider Nation Radio host ‘JT the Brick’ talked about Kubiak over the summer and said a longstanding member of the organization told him he had never seen a coach like Kubiak in terms of preparation and detail.
“I talked to people behind the scenes, off the record, who have been with this organization and [they] said he’s the best they’ve ever seen in pre-ready practice,” JT said in July on his Raider Nation Radio show.
“I said elaborate. Someone who has been with the organization as long as me, over 25 years said, quote, ‘I’ve never seen a coach come out on the field ready to practice and there was some good ones.’ I mean, Pete Carroll and Jon Gruden alone and Josh McDaniels was a genius in regard to preparation. It didn’t work, but the guy was prepped up for practice. So someone who I hold in high authority told me that Kubiak’s practices are going to be so bleeping detailed that the players who have played for other coaches are going to have to get into this quickly and that’s why the mini camps OTAs were really important.”
No more beach balls, basketballs and dancing…
On the same radio show, JT added some comments of his own to what he had seen from Kubiak in his short time with the Raiders…
“Klint Kubiak dropped in his style of coaching, and it alerted not only the players but the staff. There’s not a lot of staff that’s been around long, right? Every time there’s a coaching turnover, a lot of the coaches are gone. But I talked to someone on the staff who said, ‘Watch out. When practice starts, 30 seconds before these practices start, they will be lined up ready to go on the whistle.
No beach balls, no basketballs, no high fives, no dancing. No one wants to see you dance anymore. We don’t want to see you dance. None of the dancing. Line up and be ready. The drill starts when the league officially says we’re allowed to start practice. We go. It’s like a track meet, right? Get in the blocks. Get in the blocks. Kubiak’s here and we’re going to start.
And they’re going to be so efficient that they’re going to get in more plays. They’re going to get in more drills. I heard this from the same person. They’re going to have more time to go back and execute on the mistakes they made instead of a lot of coaches going, Oh my God, he jumped offsides. He made a mistake, do it again. A lot of coaches can’t do it again. They got to go to the next play. They got to run to the next drill.”
x: @raidersbeat