Raiders Mystery Head Coaching Candidate Revealed?

Have the Raiders stalled in the search for their next head coach?

From the outside, that’s the way it was starting to look on Tuesday.

Davis Webb and Klint Kubiak have been considered two of the top candidates for the Raiders’ job since the interview process began two weeks ago, but both candidates seemed to hit a bump in the road in the last 36 hours.

Davis Webb is apparently not the no. 1 candidate in the building (why else would they have allowed him to leave without a contract after Monday’s second interview?) and Klint Kubiak has been slow to accept a second interview, according to team insider Vinny Bonsignore.

“I think for right now you almost have to remove him from consideration,” Bonsignore said of Kubiak on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate on Tuesday.

Adding to the intrigue on Tuesday, The Athletic’s Dianna Russini said a mystery candidate is scheduled to interview with the Raiders later in the week. Russini didn’t offer clues on the identity of the candidate, but based on the latest from league insider Tony Pauline, it sounds like the candidate she was referring to might be Kubiak.

“Kubiak is the ‘it’ coaching candidate this season, and while I’m told he wants to be a head coach, he’s also in a position of leverage, allowing him to make the best decision for his career,” Pauline reported on Tuesday evening.

“Kubiak has interviews set up later this week with the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders. The sense I’m getting is that he would likely return to Seattle rather than take the head coaching job with Arizona, unless they somehow blow him away with an amazing offer. The Cardinals are not a very desirable job for anyone,” Pauline continued.

“The Raiders? I’m told any candidate, including Kubiak, must be comfortable with minority owner and future Hall of Famer Tom Brady looking over their shoulder and potentially second-guessing decisions.”

Pauline is the only media personality reporting Kubiak has a second interview scheduled with the Raiders, but he was also the first to report on Christian Wilkins’ reoccurring foot issues a year ago… so there is reason to be confident in his reporting on the team’s coaching situation this year.

If Kubiak is the candidate the Raiders end up targeting, he cannot be officially signed until after the Super Bowl on February 8.

Among others, flagship radio host ‘JT the Brick’ mentioned this week that there is some risk involved in waiting for Kubiak for another 12 days. If Kubiak happened to change his mind on the Raiders between now and February 8, he is free to pivot and stay with the Seahawks for another year.

“I’ve been leaning towards Kubiak the whole time. I think Kubiak is the guy, and he’s not flamboyant, and he’s probably not going to blow away anybody in an interview from what I’ve heard about his persona. But you saw the way he called that game in Seattle and some of the decisions that were made from an offensive perspective,” JT said on his Raider Nation Radio show on Monday.

And most Raider Nation thinks that Klint Kubiak probably could be the right call, but you got to wait till after the Super Bowl and that’s a risk. I’ve been talking about that here for a couple of weeks, and I think we’ve owned that topic as good as anybody. Risk reward. And I framed all the different risks and rewards that you can have in life. If you want to wait for something, you want to wait for your dream sweetheart, you better make sure they don’t leave you at the altar.”

x: @raidersbeat

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