Count Klint Kubiak among the Las Vegas Raiders eager to take a six-week break. A proverbial pause for respite and refuge before he leads his first training camp.
“I’m just looking forward to going home, being a dad, and being around my kids, my wife, and my family and rejuvenating that way,” the coach said Thursday morning during a 15-minute call-and-response at Intermountain Health Performance Center.
“It’s really important for myself, for our whole staff, for our players to go recharge. I don’t want our guys to get burnt out. I want our guys to be excited to come to work when training camp starts.”
Because minicamp is over.
Kubiak says the Raiders have improved throughout the course of their offseason program, reserving judgment and rightfully so until they don their pads during training camp. Still, he’s content with the culture he’s installed and the competitiveness up and down their roster.
Allow quarterback Kirk Cousins to explain: “He brings that sense of urgency that the great coaches tend to bring, right? And it’s certainly not a laid-back atmosphere, I’ll just say that, and I think that’s a positive, but I think that comes with being a head coach. … We’re not out here just kind of having fun. Like, it’s work, and you feel that in the locker room, pre-practice, the way guys’ mindset is, and just guys are really focused, are going over their stuff two or three times, because they don’t want to be the guy who made the mental error. So, I think that’s a really positive thing, but it’s not a country club.”
With that in mind, here are five takeaways from Kubiak’s final news conference of the spring:
Fernando Mendoza
Kubiak said the rookie quarterback has been “diligent” amid his pursuit of improving “the things we’ve asked him to improve on,” including playing under center. Mendoza fielded shotgun snaps for national champion Indiana and is expected to handle snaps under center, from the shotgun again and in pistol — in which the quaterback is in shotgun with the running back a few yards behind him — alignments.
Still, Mendoza remains without a contract as one of two unsigned first-round draft picks, but Kubiak didn’t express much concern.
“I’ll let (general manager John Spytek) handle that,” he said. “I’ll just keep coaching him.”
Kirk Cousins
Two days after Cousins touted his improving health — nearly three years after tearing his right Achilles tendon — Kubiak seemingly agreed with his assessment, referencing his final four games last season. In said games for the Atlanta Falcons, Cousins passed for 876 yards and seven touchdowns against two interceptions, completing 62.6% of his throws.
Kubiak said “we’re counting on him this season” and agreed with the 15th-year quarterback’s assessment that he isn’t in Las Vegas just to mentor Mendoza and fourth-year quarterback Aidan O’Connell.
“We never ask anybody to be a mentor,” Kubiak said. “If you’re on the roster, it’s to play and to play really well for the team. So, that’s the quarterback’s job, all three of them, is to get ready to play and win games at a high level, and then when everybody’s doing that, they’re pushing each other, it creates competition, and the whole roster gets better.”
Nakobe Dean
The fifth-year linebacker, signed this summer away from the Philadelphia Eagles, didn’t participate in the offseason program after missing the two-day minicamp. Asked if his absences were injury-related, Kubiak stopped short of confirming as much — instead alluding to the likelihood and affirming the importance of his health come camp.
“Nakobe has been here every day. He didn’t practice, but all injuries and things like that, I don’t want to talk about this time of year. We just want to get all our guys healthy to training camp. That’s really the most important thing.”
Jermod McCoy
Akin to Dean, the rookie cornerback didn’t participate in minicamp, having missed last season with a torn ACL. Subsequent issues have lingered this year. All according to plan, per Kubiak, confirming McCoy is expected to practice when pads come on for training camp.
He’s a first-round talent but a fourth-round pick.
“I expect him to practice,” Kubiak said. “I expect him to be on the field, and it’s going to be a moving target with him. But we drafted him for a reason, drafted him to play, so I expect him to compete in camp and get plenty of reps.”
Six-week break before training camp
Kubiak sent the Raiders into summer with a simple message he shared Thursday morning: “You can ruin an offseason with 40 days away. You put all that work in this time of year, if you go post up on the couch, all that work is for naught.”
That said, Kubiak noted he expects a large contingent of Raiders to remain in Las Vegas through the start of training camp to work out at their headquarters.
“I think guys want to be here,” Kubiak said. “We have the best of the best facilities, trainers, weight staff, and I know it’s hard to leave and find better than this place. So, Mr. (Mark) Davis gives us the resources, and then our players want to stay, and that’s a big advantage to our organization.”
Contact Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on X.
