Raiders introduce Klint Kubiak two days after his Super Bowl win, two years after 49ers stint

Klint Kubiak’s introduction Tuesday as the Las Vegas Raiders coach came with the requisite historical salutes.

Six franchise legends sat alongside him, three Lombardi Trophies were front and center, a commitment-to-excellence promise was made, and there was a nod to the Autumn Wind poem.

Not mentioned: Kubiak’s connection to the once-rival 49ers and him being the latest head coach to branch off Kyle Shanahan’s tree.

Last Thursday, three days before Kubiak won Super Bowl 60 as the Seattle Seahawks’ offensive coordinator, he flashed back to his 2023 season as the Super Bowl-bound 49ers pass-game coordinator, and he indeed paid respect to Shanahan, whose father, Mike, was hired to coach the Raiders in 1988, albeit for just 1 ¼ seasons.

“Kyle showed me it’s hard but you can call the offense and lead the team at the same time. He wears a lot of hats,” Kubiak said in an exclusive interview at the Seahawks’ media session in San Jose. “He also showed me how to challenge your assistants. Put a lot on your assistants and they can help you with the game-planning process.”

Kubiak said Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald also proved quite demanding, en route to Sunday’s 29-13 win over New England at Levi’s Stadium. Kubiak complimented Macdonald’s weekly challenges after games, as well as for showing him a collaborative effort among the Seahawks’ general manager and ownership.

Kubiak witnessed similar harmony on the 2023 49ers with Shanahan, general manager John Lynch and owner Jed York.

Now, at the Raiders, Kubiak must please and work with majority owner Mark Davis and general manager John Spytek, but Kubiak also plans to frequently dial the cell phone number he just got from minority owner Tom Brady.

“His passion for speaking on all things football got me excited working with him,” Kubiak said. “That’s one of the main draws to come here, to get to work with him and Spy.”

As Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold, the 49ers’ 2023 backup, approached his locker after Sunday night’s win, Kubiak was waiting in front of it and they exchanged a hug. As they spoke for a minute, Darnold replayed a couple of the Super Bowl plays and thanked Kubiak for “having a lot of belief in me.”

Then Darnold said of Kubiak to reporters: “He’s a great offensive mind and someone who is just very honest. … He’s going to do great things in Vegas.”

When it comes to coaching trees, nothing beats genealogy, and Kubiak’s father, Gary, was an NFL coach who also won a Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium, with the 2015 Denver Broncos. Then again, Gary Kubiak originally went to the Broncos in 1995 as an assistant under Mike Shanahan (Kyle’s father) after both won the Super Bowl on George Seifert’s 49ers staff.

Four of the NFL’s 10 new coaches this offseason worked at one point on a Kyle Shanahan staff with the 49ers: Kubiak (Raiders; 49ers pass-game coordinator 2023), Jeff Hafley (Miami Dolphins; 49ers’ defensive backs coach 2016-18), Mike LaFleur (Arizona Cardinals; 49ers pass-game coordinator 2017-20), and, Robert Saleh (Tennessee Titans; 49ers defensive coordinator 2017-20, 2025).

DeMeco Ryans is entering his fourth season after serving on Shanahan’s 49ers staff from 2017-2022, those final two years as defensive coordinator. Also, Mike McDaniel parlayed his long-time apprenticeship under Shanahan into the Miami Dolphins’ coaching job the past three seasons, and McDaniel now takes over as offensive coordinator for Jim Harbaugh’s Los Angeles Chargers.

It’s no easy task to work under Shanahan en route to a first-time head coaching job. The next in line could be Kubiak’s brother, Klay, who was promoted to the 49ers’ offensive coordinator job this past season.

“(Shanahan) was really hard on me and my brother and all of us, but he also gave us a ton of responsibility,” Klint Kubiak said. “You just want to not let him down. You want to do a really good job and make his life easier because I could see how stressful his day-to-day was.”

The 49ers are nine seasons into Shanahan’s regime. They’ve made the playoffs five of the past seven seasons, including a wild-card win last month at reigning champion Philadelphia before a divisional-round, 41-6 blowout at eventual champion Seattle.

When the 49ers made their Super Bowl run two seasons ago, Kubiak noted he worked a lot with his brother and Shanahan on offensive schemes, along with quarterbacks coach Brian Griese, the main conduit to Brock Purdy.

Klint Kubiak worked for five different franchises over the past five seasons, either as offensive coordinator or pass-game coordinator: the 2021 Minnesota Vikings, ’22 Broncos, ’23 49ers, ’24 New Orleans Saints and ’25 Seahawks.

“I’ve been in a lot of buildings, for good reasons and bad. I’ve been hired and fired,” Kubiak said Tuesday, a week shy of his 39th birthday. “The resources are here. We just have to go put it together.”

Kubiak is the Raiders’ sixth coach since moving to Las Vegas from Oakland.

Reflecting further on his 49ers tenure, Kubiak added Thursday: “It was a big learning experience for me. They’d done it differently than I’d done it on other staffs. Showed me more than one way to skin a cat.

“Kyle, with how thorough he is with every play, knowing the issues – ‘What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen? Could I call this play vs. this personnel?  How do we get this same concept in different personnel groupings, so if it works then we can come back to it and show the defense a different formation?’ He’s always thinking one step ahead, even on a Tuesday night.”

After beating the 49ers and then the Rams to reach the Super Bowl, Kubiak didn’t hesitate Thursday to call the NFC West the best division in football with “really good coaches.”

Awaiting Kubiak on Tuesday’s dais were six Raiders legends – Jim Plunkett, Charles Woodson, Rich Gannon, Marcus Allen, Howie Long and Mike Haynes – as well as Spytek.

“I’ve been here before. We practiced against the Niners a few years ago,” Kubiak said of his 2023 joint practices in the preseason. “We saw the structure and all the resources in this building.

“Mr. Davis has set us up to have success there,” Kubiak added. “Now it’s about us going and lifting those weights, using that field and those meeting rooms. Everyone has players and resources. Now it’s about finding those edges and seeing how we can bring our team together and be connected to go produce a winner.”

They last won a Lombardi Trophy in the 1983 season. Meanwhile, the 49ers have gone 31 seasons without a Super Bowl triumph. Both franchises are all-in on second-generation coaches to end those droughts.