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(Photo by Eakin Howard/Getty Images)

The Seattle Seahawks are knee-deep in the draft and defending their Super Bowl Championship. However, they will be defending that title without one of the catalysts behind their championship ring, Klint Kubiak.

Kubiak was with the Seahawks for just one season as offensive coordinator. Still, in his system, Jaxson Smith-Njigba cemented himself as one of the best wide receivers in the league, leading the league in receiving with 1,793 yards and winning AP Offensive Player of the Year.

Now, as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, Kubiak is implementing a unique form of motivation for his players as they begin their offseason work.

Earning the Decal

The Raiders need a lot of work after having the worst record in football last season, and they are going through an organizational overhaul with new head coach Klint Kubiak and their Heisman Trophy-winning number one pick, Fernando Mendoza. However, Kubiak is making it clear that the players will earn everything under him, including their helmet decals.

Las Vegas reporter Nick Walters of KTNV posted on Twitter about Kubiak and his new initiative.

“Earn the shield: It appears new #Raiders HC Klint Kubiak is having his players work to have the shield decal put on their helmets, as seen at Day 1 of veteran minicamp,” Walters wrote.

There is a recent history of a head coach using this method, but it would not be encouraging to Raiders fans.

In 2018, Hue Jackson, then the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, made his players earn the right to wear the logo on their helmets. ESPN writer Pat McManamon wrote in June of 2018 about what Jackson was trying to achieve. 

“There is a certain way that the Cleveland Browns have to play, and we are going to earn our stripes,” Jackson said Tuesday at the team’s OTA practice open to the media. “The guys that put them on their helmets and get the chance to wear them, it is going to be because they demonstrate the characteristics that we are looking for in Cleveland Browns players.”

The Browns went 7-8-1 in the 2018 season, which may seem pedestrian, but was a massive improvement over their 0-16 season the previous year. However, Jackson was fired halfway through the season after a 2-5-1 start. Kubiak is hoping for better results, and his work with Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald has given him a great foundation to build on.

Blueprint for Success 

Klint Kubiak left the Seahawks in February after helping lead the team to a Super Bowl with a plan of how he wants to run the Raiders going forward, and he helped formulate that plan by observing how Mike Macdonald operated as the head coach of the team and the standard he held all of the coaches to.

Despite being a defensive head coach, Macdonald was still involved in the offensive game planning. Kubiak discussed how Macdonald would analyze the game plans and ask questions at his introductory press conference with the Raiders. NFL reporter Ari Meirov posted Kubiak’s answer on his Twitter page  

“I hated looking him in the eye because I knew the hard questions were coming,” said Kubiak. “But I appreciated that about him because it brought the best out of us.”

Whether earning the logo on the helmet actually gives players extra motivation or is just a gimmick, time will tell, but Kubiak is trying to go to whatever lengths it takes to turn the Raiders back into a winning culture