The Las Vegas Raiders have placed a large wager on their young coaching staff, as the head coach and both their offensive and defensive coordinators have never held such responsibilities. And while Klint Kubiak has called offensive plays before, nobody really knows what to expect from Rob Leonard.
During Kubiak's media availability at the 2026 NFL scouting combine on Wednesday, he was asked more about Leonard, who had never worked with Kubiak before, and was so quickly hired as the team's next defensive coordinator.
"That was interesting how all that came to be, cause I didn't know Rob going into it," Kubiak admitted. "John Spy[tek] spoke so highly of him when I first got hired. I knew Joe Woods really well; Joe spoke really highly of Robbie. I had some people that I wanted to talk to, but in my short time with Robbie, I was just extremely impressed with his knowledge, with, obviously, the backing that he had in the building, the relationships that he built. And then when it came time to interview, Robbie was impressive. He had a plan. He knew what he wanted to do. He knew the type of players he needed to do it with, and it just revealed itself to me that he was the right guy for the job. So, really excited to work with him."
Klint Kubiak reveals that Rob Leonard's defense will be a 3-4 base
General manager John Spytek made similar comments during his press conference the day before, so fans knew some of the happenings behind the scenes. But the million-dollar question remained for the first-time defensive play-caller: What would his scheme be?
"I do see us being a base 3-4 team," Kubiak told reporters. "I see us being able to play four-down as well. I think Robbie can be very multiple with his fronts. Coming from working with Mike [Macdonald], working in Miami with [Brian] Flores, he's got a lot of really impressive influences. But he also has his own identity as well. So, we're getting to work on that part of the puzzle right now, and talking personnel this time of year. But I'm really excited about, really, more of the person, more than anything."
That is a significant change after years of Patrick Graham and Pete Carroll's systems, which were primarily 4-2-5 or 4-3. The result of this change, personnel-wise, is that the Raiders' linebacker need is now much greater. They'll also need a dominant nose tackle and more true stand-up edge rushers.
Another major tentacle of this is how it affects Maxx Crosby's alignment, should he be there. It's unlikely that Crosby will be standing up like an outside linebacker, so this change will probably see him move back full-time to the 5-7-tech, and occasionally the 9. He'll still be in a three-point stance.
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Kubiak was asked later in the media scrum whether the decision to shift to a three-man front was more out of his desire, basically seeing what Macdonald has done with the Seattle Seahawks, or if it was Leonard who felt that the Raiders' personnel matched that alignment better.
"I think both. We're in this thing together," Kubiak said. "Just from his background in Baltimore, he's been in a lot of schemes, but he has a concise vision on who he wants to be. But as we get into free agency and the draft and know who our players are and what they do best, that's what we're going to eventually evolve to. But you got to have a starting point, and that starting point, to me, would be a base 3-4."
It is interesting that Kubiak referred to the base 3-4 as a "starting point." In practice, Las Vegas may evolve more into a 3-3-5, simply because the league has put such a premium on nickel packages in recent years. The Raiders would either employ Jeremy Chinn there or find a stud slot cornerback.
If Leonard truly calls the game like Flores does currently for the Minnesota Vikings or how Macdonald does for Seattle, the Silver and Black could eventually be in sub-packages a majority of the time, perhaps making this change not quite as significant as originally thought.
But this is still a paradigm shift for the new defensive staff, and it will definitely change how Spytek approaches adding personnel in the offseason. It remains unclear how the Raiders' defense will perform in the inaugural year of the Rob Leonard era. But fans can rest assured that it'll look different.