標籤: Kubiaks

During the NFL Draft, the Las Vegas Raiders focused heavily on their secondary. They needed it.

Last season, only Tennessee and Miami allowed opponent quarterbacks to complete passes at a higher clip than the Raiders, who tied Dallas for the third-highest opponent completion percentage in the league.

General manager Jon Spityek used four of the team’s 10 picks at cornerback and safety. Las Vegas drafted Arizona safeties Traydon Stukes and Dalton Johnson in the second and fifth rounds. The team added cornerbacks Jermod McCoy and Hezekiah Maas on day three.

“We definitely needed to add competition to the defensive back room,” Clint Kubiak said. “It’s very rare to get two safeties on the same team playing together. It’s exciting. Get two new corners. That was an area on defense we needed to address.”

The question now is how four rookies fit into a defensive rotation that has to handle some of the game’s best pass catchers.

Traydon Stookes highlights the versatility of all four players

Treydan Stukes can rotate at nickelback and safety. At Arizona, he defended in man and zone, played the line of scrimmage and back end, and graded out at 90.1 overall last season – sixth best among cornerbacks nationally.

He allowed a 34.4 passer rating when targeted.

“I’m going to learn both (positions) and wherever I can fit in best and help the team win some games, that’s what I’m going to do,” Stukes said during rookie minicamp.

The Raiders traded down two spots and still took advantage of first-round talent to send them to the second round. Four interceptions and six pass breakups last year show why this matters.

Defensive coordinator Rob Leonard wants the interception. Stukes gives him a ballhawk in the middle of the field.

ALSO READ: Las Vegas Raiders 2026 NFL Draft recap: Best class in years, but the wide receiver room still needs an answer

Arizona teammates join veterans in Raiders secondary

Dalton Johnson was selected at No. 150 due to his versatility. He can play free safety, strong safety, nickelback and the slot. The Day 3 pick has a value of four positions.

Johnson totaled 277 tackles in his final three seasons in Tucson. He’ll learn behind veterans Jeremy Chinn and Isaiah Pola-Mao, who played 96% and 89% of defensive snaps last season – both clearing or approaching 1,000 snaps.

RELATED: Las Vegas Raiders draft recap: Knowing about the selections

Jarmod McCoy proving himself despite knee concerns

Jermod McCoy went from a potential first-round pick to the first pick on Day 3. Injury history ruled him out.

He missed all of 2025 due to a torn ACL at Tennessee. Reports surfaced before the draft that some teams believed a second surgery was imminent due to degenerative concerns surrounding a bone plug in the same knee. The Raiders made a one-spot deal to take him anyway.

“Confidence wasn’t an issue,” said vice president of player personnel Brandon Hunt. “We felt good about where we took him. It was an opportunity to get value. This was probably the best corner in the draft, and we feel like we have great people and a great process to make sure we get the best out of this player.”

Despite the medical report, McCoy worked out of rookie minicamp. At Tennessee in 2024, after transferring from Oregon State, he posted four interceptions and nine pass breakups and earned All-American honors. The next three months will show the attackers what they really have.

Also Read: Las Vegas Raiders QB Fernando Mendoza faced criticism from anonymous coach and it didn’t stop

Maas and McCoy join veteran cornerback room

If Stukes is the ballhawk in the middle, Hezekiah Maas is the ballhawk on the outside.

Masses led the nation with 18 passes defensed last season. He finished seventh with five interceptions and earned AP Second Team All-American honors. At over six feet tall, he reads route concepts well on the field.

The veteran room he and McCoy step into is solid. Teron Johnson comes to Buffalo with eight seasons of double-digit games, 48 ​​pass deflections (seven or more in four consecutive years from 2020-23), 98 tackles and AP All-Pro Second Team honors on his resume. Eric Stokes played more than 90% of the defensive snaps for the Raiders last season – that group included Pola-Mao and Devin White – and added five pass deflections and 53 tackles.

You have two rooms led by veterans and four rookies, which gives the Raiders a lot to be excited about.

As a result, both defensive back rooms have an opportunity to turn their great draft picks into a top unit by combining them with their veterans. The next three months of preparation before the season will tell how far they come along.

ALSO READ: Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver depth chart 2026: No clear No. 1 option heading into training camp

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The Las Vegas Raiders officially began their 2026 offseason schedule on Tuesday. No pad. No live representative. No, Fernando Mendoza is not taking pictures in the silver and black just yet. Just meetings, strength and conditioning work, and rehab of players coming back from injury.

Sounds boring, right?

it.

What happens in those first days, especially how Clint Kubiak runs them, will tell us more about the direction of this franchise than any free agent signing or mock draft projection. Culture doesn’t start in training camp. It doesn’t start with a draft. It starts now, in a building in Henderson, Nevada, with a first-year head coach trying to establish something this organization has lacked for too long: a coherent identity.

Kubiak has a chance to set the tone for whatever is to come this week. How he uses it is what matters.

Meetings are where culture is made – or broken

Stage one is essentially a classroom stage. The players are in the building, they’re conditioning their bodies and they’re sitting in the meeting room. For Kubiak, it’s really an opportunity, not a limitation.

Every new coaching staff faces the same challenge in Year 1: Players are bringing habits, tendencies and, frankly, the baggage of whoever came before them (ahem, Pete Carroll!). The Raiders have had substantial coaching changes in recent years, with some of the veterans having seen this film before. They know how to nod in meetings and wait to see if the new guy is really different. Three coaches will do this to one player in three years.

Clint Kubiak really needs to be different.

This means that messages in those rooms may not be as normal this week. It can’t be “we’ll work hard and hold each other accountable” boilerplate. Raider Nation has heard it. The players in that building have heard it. What they haven’t heard, and what this organization hasn’t had for years, is a clear, specific, non-negotiable vision of how this team will operate. Just not aggressively. Just not in a planned manner. Culturally.

This is Kubiak’s chance to draw that line in the sand before even throwing a single ball.

Max Crosby sets the tone if Kubiak empowers him to do so

Here’s something that isn’t discussed enough: Max Crosby’s presence in that building this week is just as important as Kubiak said.

Crosby’s trade with Baltimore was voided. He is an attacker. And does Kubiak still fully understand it, Crosby is the most important cultural asset he has. Not because of his rush numbers, although they speak for themselves, but because of what Crosby represents to every player who walks through that door.

He decided to stay. He could force his way out. He didn’t.

This means a lot in a locker room environment where players want to see who really believes in what is being built in Vegas. If Kubiak is smart, he’s leaning on Crosby in those early meetings. Not in a fanciful, “let’s cheer on the star” way — but in a genuine acknowledgment that the approach of the veteran leadership and coaching staff has to work in the same direction, or none of it will work.

A coaching staff that sidelines its own culture bearers in Year 1 is a coaching staff that is already behind.

What Kubiak’s approach says about his leadership style

New head coaches fall into two camps as the early offseason begins. Some people treat phase one as a formality, like getting bodies into the building, checking compliance boxes and saving the actual setup for OTAs and training camp. Others consider it the basis.

Given what Jon Spytek and the Raiders have built this offseason, Clint Kubiak can’t afford to treat this as a formality. They are having a voluntary veteran minicamp April 20-22, three days before the draft begins in Pittsburgh. That minicamp, combined with the first two weeks of Phase One, gives Kubiak about three weeks to establish the relational equity he’ll need when real competition begins.

Three weeks is not long. But it is enough to show the players what kind of head coach you are. Does he know their names before he knows your snap counts, do you walk the same way in the practice facility, are the cameras running or not, are the standards you preach the standards you actually enforce.

Attention is paid to those things. They are discussed. They go from veteran to young players faster than any plan.

All eyes are on Kubiak and the tone he sets

Tuesday is the beginning of something. Is this the start of something real. Will this be a cultural change that will actually stick in Las Vegas or not? It depends on what Clint Kubiak actually decides to do these early, quiet, unnatural weeks.

The Raiders have plenty of big moments and bold announcements. What they’re missing is the foundation beneath all this.

The first phase is starting from Tuesday. Now the foundation is laid.

Scott Gulbranson is the editor-in-chief of our Silver & Black TODAY Las Vegas Raiders community, a member of the Pro Football Writers of America, and host of Silver & Black TODAY on 101.5 KDAWN in Las Vegas.

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