Rob Leonard wasn’t just checking off boxes on his defensive coordinator resume as he worked his way through the ranks the last few years.
He chose to treat each job he had along the way as the most important job in the world — as opposed to just seeing it as a stepping stone.
“I wasn’t pressing to climb the coaching ladder. That wasn’t as important to me,” Leonard said after Wednesday’s OTA practice at the team facility in Henderson. “I just kind of let the NFL take place and I always felt like if I worked hard and did a good job at the job I had, it would lead to another opportunity rather than chasing something else. That stuff irritates me quite frankly.
“It will happen when it’s supposed to happen, but just make sure I’m ready.”
His approach eventually paid off. Leonard, who has served as defensive line coach the last three seasons under three different head coaches, was not only retained by new coach Klint Kubiak, but named defensive coordinator for the first time in his career.
At the time, Kubiak had a list of potential candidates to run his defense but was encouraged by general manager John Spytek to at least meet with Leonard.
“In my short time with Robby, I was just extremely impressed with his knowledge and the relationships he had built in the building,” Kubiak said at the time. “He was impressive. He had a plan. He knew what he wanted to do and what type of players he needed to do it with.
“It just revealed itself to me that he was the right guy for the job.”
Leonard remembered Kubiak gave him the floor to present his plan for how he would approach the job.
“He just kind of let me let it rip,” Leonard said. “I just went in on the plan from literally what I call personnel season in the offseason to OTAs, to training camp, to the season of how I would do it.
“I just kind of went through the interview, and he was taking notes, and he asked some questions, some really good ones I can’t recall off the top of my head, but we were in there for quite a while.”
Now he is tasked with running a defense for an offensive-minded first-time coach. The beauty for Leonard is the ability to create his scheme from the ground floor up, incorporating the principles of the many outstanding coordinators he has worked for in the past from Steve Spagnuolo to Brian Flores and Mike Macdonald with his own ideas for what can be effective in today’s game.
Defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator Joe Woods, whose office was next to Leonard’s last year and was also retained on this staff, is excited to see how it all comes together.
“People are going to have some guesses about what it’s going to look like based on who he’s worked with and where he’s been,” Woods said. “But I think what we’re trying to put together is unique because we’re kind of putting together a whole package.
“He had a vision of how he wanted this defense to go. To see some of the things he talked about and his vision of how he wanted to see his defense come to fruition has just been awesome. You can see it slowly building, so I’m excited to see what we can do with him.”
Leonard is plenty far along in designing and installing his scheme.
The smaller points of the promotion he’s still figuring out.
He’s still not sure whether he will call plays from the field or the press box when the season starts. And during individual periods at practice, he sometimes has to remind himself he’s overseeing the entire group so he can’t just instinctively jump into the defensive line drills.
At least not all the time, though defensive end Malcolm Koonce said he still believes the 38-year-old Leonard would suit up if he couldIt’s that type of mentality that the players and others around the organization have found so appealing.
Koonce believes the rest of the defense is quickly learning what he already knew about his former position coach. Leonard is going to allow them to play freely.
“I’m a little crazy,” Leonard said. “ would like them to play fast, even at the cost of a mental error. I don’t like to see hesitation on the field, so even if you’re unsure, make a decision and go and let us coach. Let us do our job, but I don’t want any slow blinkers out there.
“You can’t take it away if you don’t run to the ball and just staying with that mindset and instilling confidence in them that they can play that way, that they have the freedom from me. I don’t care about a bust over that. That’s not the difference between winning and losing to me.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.
