PHOENIX — Klint Kubiak has been preparing his whole life to be an NFL head coach, even before he knew he wanted to follow his father’s career path.
It’s why he wasn’t thrown off even when one of the first major moments of his Las Vegas Raiders tenure was dealing with an essentially unprecedented voided trade that would have sent his defensive star Maxx Crosby to Baltimore.
“You guys have been covering the league long enough to know things don’t surprise you,” he told a small group of reporters during the league meetings at the Arizona Biltmore. “You get experience, and you go through battles, and when things like that come up, you’re ready for them, because that’s just part of the job, and that’s what makes the job fun. It’s never the same day, it’s always different.
“We lost him, we got him back, our team is better. Hell yeah.”
Kubiak watched as his Super Bowl-winning father, Gary, managed these types of situations growing up.
It wasn’t necessarily a life he wanted for himself.
“I didn’t want to be a coach,” he said. “I saw the hours (my dad) worked, and I loved playing. I was going to go play in the NFL for 20 years, like everybody probably dreams of, like we all did. But then I graduated from college and got into it as a graduate assistant, and just really fell in love with being a coach.”
He admitted, however, he wasn’t surprised how quickly he took to it.
That passion was further enhanced working around high-level coaching minds like the Shanahans, Kevin Stefanski and Norv Turner, who Kubiak cites as a major influence.
While he learned something from each of them, it also made him realize how important it was to forge his own path.
“I was fortunate enough to get to work under (my dad) in Denver and see how he handled the job and just was really fortunate to have role models like him and other guys I worked for,” Kubiak said. “And we’re going to try to do it my own way. I’m not going to try to be like them.”
Still, the phone calls are frequent. They aren’t just about football, however.
“I’d say I talk to him almost every day about everything from asking questions about scheme, about the draft, about how to assemble the hitting tee in our garage for my kids,” he said. “He’s my dad. We talk about everything – work, family – every day.”
The lifetime of preparation had Kubiak ready to hit the ground running when he took his first head coaching job with the Raiders, days after winning the Super Bowl as offensive coordinator of the Seahawks in February.
“It’s been fun,” he said. “It’s been a lot of hard work, but (general manager John Spytek) allowed us to hire a lot of really high-quality coaches to spread the work around, because you can’t do it all yourself. I’m trying to work on being a better delegator and trusting guys to go do their jobs and hire some really talented coordinators and assistants, and now we get to go see how prepared we are when we go get in front of these players on Tuesday.”
That will be the beginning of the Raiders offseason program, culminating with mandatory minicamp in June.
It will be the first time the players and the coaching staff Kubiak has assembled can start to really get to work on accomplishing the goals Kubiak has laid out for the organization.
He’s excited to see the results of all the work that has been done over the last two months, both in his efforts to put together his first staff and Spytek and the front office bolstering the roster.
The start of a new phase may provide the opportunity for the chaotic opening stretch of his tenure to settle down a bit and return to the normalcy of preparing for a season.
It will also move Kubiak one step closer to really settling into his new hometown.
He has had five jobs in the past five years, which means lots of moving for his young family.
Once school ends, it will be time to really lay down roots.
“I’ve really enjoyed being in Vegas,” he said. “My family’s moving in about a month. So, looking forward to getting my kids on a baseball team, softball team, get them in swim lessons, and get them ingrained in the community, because we plan on being here for a long time.”
That should mean plenty more conversations, and visits, from dad.
But Kubiak has also added another championship-winning voice to his regular rotation since taking the job with the Raiders.
He has been talking and texting frequently with minority owner Tom Brady regularly as they continue to build their relationship with the common goal of turning around the organization.
“He’s extremely supportive, giving great advice, talking about his experience in New England, things that he did in Tampa, and he’s just always given great advice and been very supportive of me,” Kubiak said. “In all aspects of my job, I’m reaching out to him and asking for his advice, and he’s given advice, and what I’ve asked him is to give the advice that I really don’t want to hear. It’s OK to hurt my feelings. I’d rather it be that way. Obviously, I have all the confidence in the world that we’re going to keep building that relationship and it’s been a good start. It just takes time.
“That’s relationships. They take time, and we’ve been putting in the time.”
After all, Kubiak has been on the job for less than two months. Even if it seems like a whole lot has happened in that time.
He hopes he’s just getting started.
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.