The Seahawks are getting ready for a familiar face, but not in a way that makes Sunday feel simple.
Klint Kubiak, now the Raiders’ head coach, spent one season in Seattle and left a clear imprint on the offense and the building around it. Eric Saubert knew that long before Kubiak arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Back in 2022, when Saubert was with the Denver Broncos and Kubiak was the passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach, the tight end saw the same thing everyone else eventually did.
“He works his ass off,” Saubert said. “I know there’s stories about him sleeping in here, like, every day of the week.
Incredible work ethic. Obviously respect him so much.
Good relationship with him.
“But this week, obviously, hope he loses.”
Seattle will see Kubiak’s Raiders for the first time since he took over in Las Vegas shortly after the Seahawks’ Super Bowl championship. His only year on Mike Macdonald’s staff was enough to leave a mark, though, and Macdonald made it clear why Kubiak moved on so quickly.
“I really loved working with Klint,” Macdonald said. “He was a great team player. I think that mentality is probably an underrated part of being a head coach, of being able to see everything in a 360-degree viewpoint.
“Unselfishly, he was able to remove himself from a lot of situations and do things for the betterment of the team consistently, which, from my perspective, you definitely appreciate.”
The Raiders have carried a lot of Kubiak’s Seattle offense with them, though not every piece made the trip. Offensive line coach John Benton stayed behind after being promoted to senior offensive assistant in the offseason, and Macdonald said he was “confident” the Seahawks would keep Benton rather than lose him to Kubiak’s staff.
There have also been some changes in how Kubiak carries himself. Cooper Kupp said he was pleased to see the usually reserved coach loosen up a bit, including a passionate postgame message after Las Vegas beat the Miami Dolphins 27-13 in Week 1.
On the field, the resemblance is hard to miss. Julian Love said the Raiders’ offense is “kind of in the same family-ish,” while noting that personnel shapes how any system really looks.
“It’s kind of in the same family-ish,” Love said of the Raiders’ offense. “But really, the people that you have in the building dictate how the flow is.”
That familiarity cuts both ways.
“It’s probably a net neutral because we know him, but he also knows us,” Love said. “He obviously has been in this building, has had success in this building.
We had a really competitive camp and season against those guys last year when he was here. But he knows our stuff, we know his style, I guess, more than anything.”
Macdonald compared the matchup to preparing for a first divisional game, but the Raiders’ new quarterback adds another wrinkle. Fernando Mendoza, the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, will make his first career start after Las Vegas traded Kirk Cousins to the Minnesota Vikings ahead of Tuesday’s deadline. Even so, Macdonald said the Seahawks’ approach hasn’t changed much.
“He’s a really good player, and he’s gonna have a great career,” Macdonald said. “You can tell that by the information we had coming out (of the draft).
He’s got a great skill set. We’ll focus on us.”
Seattle, meanwhile, is trying to find its own rhythm without some of the people who helped power last year’s Super Bowl run. Kubiak is gone, and Brian Fleury is now calling plays in his first season as an offensive coordinator after never doing so at any level before this year.
The results have dipped. Sam Darnold has missed time with two injuries and has nearly as many interceptions, nine, as touchdowns, 10, in seven games. The run game has fallen off in almost every category, and the offense has leaned more and more on Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the passing game.
Even with those issues, Macdonald sees a lot of the same DNA in what Seattle is trying to do and what Kubiak has built in Las Vegas. Fleury and Kubiak overlapped with the 49ers in 2023, when Fleury was San Francisco’s tight ends coach and Kubiak was the passing game coordinator, and both systems pull from Kyle Shanahan’s West Coast roots. That means wide-zone runs, heavier personnel, and a structure Macdonald says the Raiders have adapted well.
“I think to their credit, they’ve evolved,” he said. “They’re building around the people that they have, and they’re doing it at a high level.
So, respect how they operate, obviously. They got great people, good players.
They’re moving the ball and putting up a lot of points.”
The concern for Las Vegas hasn’t been on offense. It’s been on the other side of the ball. The Raiders are last in total defense at 385.4 yards per game and second-to-last in yards per play allowed at 6.1, while giving up 20 passing touchdowns and 13 rushing touchdowns.
That’s not Kubiak’s lane, and it never really was. His value in Seattle came from his offensive mind and the way he handled the day-to-day grind, including the long nights at Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
“He has a way about him where he can kind of tell you the truth and go through, not around, without sugarcoating it,” Macdonald said, “but also keeping the personal emotions out of it as well, which I think got respect from both the rest of our coaches and our team. So, he’s got a lot of great characteristics.”
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