Klint Kubiak New OC

Klint Kubiak was a fine football player, a starting safety who became a captain at Colorado State, but reality hit quick after three NFL offseason practices left him cut and searching for a new gig. He went to his dad, Gary, a longtime NFL coach who at the time was in charge of the Houston Texans.

Klint professed to Gary that he didn’t want to leave football. If he couldn’t play, he wanted to coach. He wanted to be like his dad. He asked for advice and maybe that advice would lead to a low-level job on his dad’s staff.

“And his dad’s advice was that you better go work for other people,” Gary said in a 2019 interview with The Athletic. “I really think sometimes being a coach’s kid is a hard thing.”

So Klint began his coaching career elsewhere, first at Texas A&M from 2010-12, then in 2013 and 2014 as a quality control coach with the Vikings. He joined his dad in Denver in 2016 and urged him to give up the stresses of the job after two health scares sent him in two ambulances. But when Gary decided he wasn’t suited for the brief retirement that followed those hospital trips, father and son came to Minnesota with matching goals.

Gary, who vowed he’d never be a head coach again, wanted his scheme, heavy on zone rushes and play action, to live on. He wanted to give back to coaches of another generation, repaying the favor for the long nights Mike Shanahan had spent teaching him the intricacies of the game.

Klint was looking for something similar. They may have talked ball a bit at home since Gary and his three sons all work in the sport. But not often. Gary preferred to play with the grandkids and leave work at work.

“I would have had to ask him — and I never did,” Klint once told The Athletic about learning his dad’s scheme. “But I still wanted to get the knowledge that he had that I always knew was there, but never got to pick his brain, never got to really talk football with him.”

For two years with the Vikings, Gary got exactly what he hoped for. He taught then-offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski his playbook, then enjoyed watching Stefanski take over the Cleveland Browns and become the coach of the year. He enjoyed working closely with Klint and nitpicking plays and game plans with his son.

Now, Gary is ready to retire to his Texas ranch. And Klint has been tapped to take his dad’s old post, selected as the Vikings’ next offensive coordinator, a move first reported by NFL Network. Klint will be formally introduced by the team for the new job later this month, but in the meantime, we figured we’d look at the most pressing questions facing the Vikings’ new offensive coordinator.



Where does he differ from his dad?

Klint Kubiak spent the last two years learning from his dad. He was chosen, in part, because Mike Zimmer knows that Klint will keep the same playbook, terminology, and overall scheme. But there will still be areas that Klint differs from Gary and that’s OK. Gary was a Super Bowl-winning coach and helped usher this scheme into the 21st Century.

But he also ran the ball too much on second-and-long and there are areas where Klint could tweak things. One potential challenge, though, is the NFL may not conduct offseason practices given the pandemic. So Klint’s first time running the offense in practice may not come until training camp in July.

Since Stefanski had never called plays when he became the offensive coordinator two years ago, the Vikings used to simulate game situations for him to make calls via a walkie-talkie into Kirk Cousins’ helmet. They could do that again during training camp to give Klint some reps at the job. And surely he’ll be hoping there are preseason games this year to continue practicing calling plays.

How often will Klint use play action?

One of the biggest changes that Gary brought to the Vikings was an emphasis on play action. The move was two-fold. Play action has been proven effective by several teams, most notably the Los Angeles Rams, who led the league in usage the last two years. Plus, Gary’s primary goal was bringing the most out of Cousins, and Cousins excels on play action.

In each of the last two years, the Vikings used play action 132 times. In 2019, Cousins threw for 9.4 yards per attempt on those plays. Then, even when defenses knew the Vikings would rely on play action in 2020, Cousins’ production on those plays actually increased, jumping to 9.7 yards per attempt.

It’s clear that Cousins is great at play action and teams haven’t figured out how to slow the Vikings there. So will Klint increase the usage?

Will he be here for the long-haul?

We may be getting ahead of ourselves with this one, but it’s worth noting two things. The first is that Klint is the Vikings’ sixth offensive coordinator in six years. Some have earned promotions (Pat Shurmur, Stefanski), one was fired (John DeFilippo), one quit unexpectedly (Norv Turner) and another retired (Kubiak). But no offensive coordinator under Mike Zimmer has held the job for three full seasons (and most don’t hold it for two).

The second thing to note is that if Klint does have success with the Vikings, he’ll surely be quick to receive interviews for head-coaching jobs if the trend of hiring young coaches remains. Owners and front offices continue to reward young coaches, especially offensive ones, with head jobs, and if Klint produces a top-10 offense, he’ll get opportunities.

On the one hand, if Klint is so successful that he’s being interviewed for head-coaching jobs, then that’s a good thing for the Vikings because it means the offense performed well. On the other hand, you can bet Zimmer and Cousins would like some continuity at the team’s most important assistant coach job.

What will Klint’s run/pass split be?

Zimmer is the ultimate boss within the Vikings and we know that he seeks a balanced offense. But is Klint a bit more willing to pass the ball than his dad? We’ll see. The Vikings were one of the most run-heavy teams in early situations the last two seasons. While we’d expect that to be the case again in 2021, there’s a chance that Klint — a quarterbacks coach for the past five seasons with the Broncos and Vikings — can work a few more pass attempts into early situations than the Vikings used the last two years.

How will he use tight ends?

It’s still unclear whether the team will return Kyle Rudolph, but it’ll be interesting to see how often the Vikings rely on their tight ends regardless of Rudolph’s situation. They drafted Irv Smith Jr. in the second round two years ago in part because they envisioned him as a player they could use in a multitude of ways, including via handoffs in the backfield. We haven’t really seen that much.

Smith Jr. only touched the ball 30 times last season. There’s a chance that drastically increases with a new offensive coordinator and, potentially, a bigger role.

Any changes to get more out of Cousins?

Before Gary Kubiak arrived, Zimmer stressed that he wanted a coordinator who would play to Cousins’ strengths. That’s what Gary did, moving the offense to one that put Cousins under center and emphasized play action.

But are there further tweaks that Klint can utilize? He has a good relationship with Cousins after being his position coach last season. Perhaps the two of them have discussed plays they can add.

Will the O-line still be run-focused?

Under Gary Kubiak, the Vikings’ primary focus on the offensive line has been at run blocking and selecting linemen athletic enough to pull off what’s asked of them in the zone scheme. But the Vikings’ pass blocking has suffered. They were one of the worst pass-blocking teams in the league last season.

The Vikings aren’t suddenly going to catapult into a top-10 offensive line this year, especially considering they won’t have many resources to allocate to the position in the coming months. But if they’re looking to help Cousins, one way would be improving their pass blocking.