Silver And Black Pride
Raiders redundancy is apt at the quarterback position.
No, I’m not referring to having super veteran Kirk Cousins, No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza, and another vet Aidan O’Connell as the top trio in the quarterback room. That’s quite important, don’t get me wrong.
It’s having Klint Kubiak as the head coach and primary offensive play caller and his trusted “fixer” Andrew Janocko as his offensive coordinator. Both served as as quarterback coaches in their respective careers and the initial thought was the experience shared between them both, a true QB coach wasn’t necessarily required.
Enter: Mike Sullivan.
The veteran quarterback guru was added to Kubiak’s staff and now, the Las Vegas Raiders have a three-headed monster to help develop, guide, and teach a reformed quarterbacks room. And Sullivan’s presence on top of Kubiak’s and Janocko’s is a boon for the Silver & Black.
Case-in-point: Cousins, who enters his 15th season in the NFL at 37 years old, is taking full advantage of the coaching staff resources available to him.
“And there’s so many resources in this building, and it’s exciting to go to work every day and have that many people,” Cousins began, “I mean, Mike Sullivan has been Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning. I mean, I can just go on and on asking, ”What did this guy do, what were his habits like, what drills did he like, how did he get ready, how did he handle the playoffs?” And I’ve got so many people who can help me.”
Sullivan’s attention to detail and dealing with duress are his calling card as a quarterback’s coach and that’s what the Raiders need to instill in their quarterbacks — particularly Mendoza. Sullivan brings over 20 years of NFL coaching experience, championship pedigree, proven track record with high-profile quarterbacks, alongside play-calling experience and pre-existing chemistry with the staff Kubiak assembled — all of which will be beneficial to his fellow coaches and, more importantly, the signal callers he’s in charge of.
Add assistant head coach Mike McCoy to the mix and Las Vegas has a solid group of offensive minds who have experienced the highs and lows of quarterback development.
The common thread amongst the group is prior working relationships. It’s common knowledge that’s quite true for Kubiak and Janocko who both come over from last season’s Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. Kubiak also worked with Sullivan with the Denver Broncos during the 2018 season as the former was a young offensive assistant while the latter served as the quarterbacks coach. Janocko and Sullivan linked up on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers coaching staff (2012-13) where the younger coach was an offensive quality control assistant and the veteran was the offensive coordinator.
And McCoy and Kubiak were both on the Broncos staff in 2017 with the former serving as the offensive coordinator and latter being an offensive assistant.
Each brings unique skillsets to the table, but so far, this offseason in Silver & Black, the group has a unified message that’s singular...
