Klint Kubiak is turning up the heat in Houston, using joint practices to expose the Las Vegas Raiders’ discipline and execution problems before they become costly in the regular season.
Kubiak’s decision to lean into joint practices with Houston this week is the right call, and his recent answer proves he already knows why. This Raiders team has a discipline problem that live reps against a hostile scout team will expose faster than another exhibition script ever could.
Start with what Kubiak actually said. Unprompted, he didn’t highlight a promising rookie or a scheme wrinkle. He flagged penalties as the thing that “stood out” from Week 1, calling it what it is: “not winning football.” That’s not coach speak but rather a leader admitting his team beat itself. Pair that with his own admission that the offense went into halftime and simply stopped scoring, and you have a roster that isn’t losing games on talent. It’s losing them on situational execution.
Houston will provide a real test for Klint Kubiak’s Raiders…
You don’t fix that by running the same 11-on-11 script against your own defense for a third straight week. Your players already know that defense’s tendencies. There’s no consequence for a false start against a guy you’ve lined up across from since OTAs. Houston’s front, with pass rushers Kubiak himself called “impressive,” changes that instantly. A jump set penalty against a defensive end you’ve never seen creates the exact discomfort that either gets coached out of a player in real time or gets that player exposed before final cuts.
The counterargument is obvious and not unreasonable. Joint practices in August heat, against one of the more physical fronts in the league, are an injury risk that outweighs whatever discipline lesson you’re chasing.
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Vegas has had its own camp injury scares in recent years, and an offensive line still figuring out its identity doesn’t need extra live pass rush reps from Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson in Houston humidity. If a starting tackle goes down in a glorified practice, no amount of penalty discipline progress matters.
That risk is evident, but it’s also exactly the point Kubiak made when he called this trip well timed. Conditioning in “a different kind of heat” isn’t filler. Every team walks the tightrope between padded practice reps and health in August. The teams that skip joint practices entirely don’t eliminate the injury risk; they just delay the discovery of who can’t hold up until Week 4 of the regular season, when the games count.
Kubiak isn’t gambling with bodies for no reason.
Forget preseason, the joint practices will reveal more…
He’s trying to find out now, against a real opponent, whether his linemen’s technique holds up under unfamiliar pressure, because Week 1 already told him it doesn’t hold up mentally against anybody. Controlled practice reps with padded intensity and a whistle nearby are safer than finding out those same flaws in Week 3 preseason against a defense trying to end a roster battle, or worse, in the regular season when a holding call kills a scoring drive that actually matters.
So which is it, Raiders fans? Is Kubiak recklessly trading bodies for a discipline lesson he could teach in a walkthrough, or is the first-year head coach willing to let his team get uncomfortable in August so it doesn’t fall apart in November?
*Top Photo: Ramble Illustration/Getty Images
You have to get ready for real games. The effort level has to go up. Trial by fire is the only way to be ready for the regular season. Players can get hurt at anytime, let just hope they don’t.