The first major coordinator hire for former Seattle Seahawks signal-caller and Las Vegas Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak does not involve any members of Mike Macdonald’s staff. Instead, he chose to promote someone who was on Pete Carroll’s Raiders staff.
As Patrick Graham leaves the Raiders to become DC of the Pittsburgh Steelers, it appears his successor will be game coordinator and defensive line coach Rob Leonard.
Raiders interviewed Seahawks safeties coach Jeff Howard before this imminent promotion. Any vague idea of defensive backs coach Karl Scott getting a DC job elsewhere has already been put to bed.
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Leonard joined Vegas in 2023 under Josh McDaniels and was one of the few retained by Coach Carroll after Antonio Pierce was fired at the end of 2024. As bad as the Raiders were, their run defense was one of their few strengths.
The Raiders also hired Joe Woods as passing game coordinator, after working with him when they were with the New Orleans Saints.
I think what we can say is that there’s a high probability that the Seahawks won’t have many (if any) of Mike Macdonald’s current assistants defect to Vegas to join Kubiak, which is great news in terms of personnel continuity for the Super Bowl champion Seahawks.
