Silver And Black Pride
The Las Vegas Raiders underwent plenty of changes this offseason, especially on the coaching staff. There are several new faces in the Intermountain Health Performance Center in Henderson, Nevada, including head coach Klint Kubiak. But there are also a few familiar faces in the building, just in different roles than they were a year ago. The most significant example of that is recently promoted defensive coordinator Rob Leonard.
After spending one year as a high school coach, three years coaching at his alma mater (NC State), and then 13 years cutting his teeth as a defensive assistant coach in the NFL, the 38-year-old Leonard finally gets to run an entire defense and shape the unit in his vision. What does that look like, and how does he put his thumbprint on the defense?
“Style of play, man,” the long-time defensive line coach replied during OTAs on June 3. “I’m going to coach the defense like I coach the D-line. I still do the same things I do. Not going one-for-one, attacking the ball, effort in pursuit. We start there, but that’s always got to stick out, and a product on the field that you know what it looks like.
“Klint always talks about our silent tape. I always feel like if my wife can point it out, like, ‘Hey, that’s a good job,’ everybody knows what it should look like. But today, the theme was clean operation, great substitution, great communication, aligned with the speed brakes, like all those little things outside of the scheme are how things come to life, and that’s been fun to see.”
Building on that, Leonard wants 11 defenders on the field who will be aggressive and operate with urgency. That can be difficult at this stage since players are learning a new system, even the ones who return from last season, since they’re playing for a new and first-time coordinator. Still, Leonard would rather see his guys playing fast and is willing to live with assignment mistakes during OTAs.
“Yeah, I’m a little crazy,” he explained. “I 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.
“So, still going into how we play box, how we attack the ball, how we run to the ball. 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. Like, I don’t care about a bust over that. It’s not the difference of winning and losing to me.”
Schematically, one of the biggest news stories surrounding the Silver and Black’s defense this offseason was when Kubiak mentioned that he’d like to run a 3-4 base...
