The Las Vegas Raiders are about to begin the 2026 regular season with almost a brand-new coaching staff. Pete Carroll is out and Klint Kubiak is in as head coach, and the majority of the rest of the staff is entering its first year in Las Vegas. However, Kubiak did keep one familiar face: Rob Leonard.
Leonard is no stranger to the Raiders and the organization’s regime changes, serving as the team’s defensive line coach from 2023 to 2025. Kubiak will be the fourth head coach he’s worked under in as many
years with the club, but even the organization’s longest-tenured current coach will be stepping into a new role this season.
In his 14 years as an NFL coach, Leonard has never held the ‘defensive coordinator’ title until this year. So, the preseason was the first time he’s called plays in a game, which the 38-year-old said has “been fun.”
“You learn something every game,” Leonard explained. “Very focused. I mean, you’re just so process-oriented within the middle of the game. As soon as the series is done, what problems do we need to fix? Coaches up. Let’s get on the same page here of, ‘Okay, what did we run on first and 10 that last series? What do we want to do the next series?’
“Very similar to how we would do it as a position coach, but now being the guy that is making sure you get the right information from upstairs to get the right information to the position coaches. We talk about it a lot as a staff of them understanding the cadence of how the game is going to flow together. So, we’re in this together.”
Reinforcing the togetherness, Leonard continued to say that he has been leaning on his staff to help with situational play calls, referring to defensive line coach Travis Smith as the “head coach” of the early-down run game as an example.
That did come with some growing pains, though. The Raiders surrendered 27 points and 368 yards to the Arizona Cardinals in their first preseason game, Leonard’s first time making calls into the headset. However, the defense settled in during its second go-around, yielding just 13 points and 219 yards to the Houston Texans’ offense. For bookkeeping purposes, the Texans’ defense had a pick-six to bring the team’s total to 20 points.
What accounts for the difference between the two outings? Familiarity.
“A little bit,” Leonard replied when asked if the process slowed down from week one to week two. “I just thought we put our guys in a little bit better position to do what we do. We were very vanilla early, but the guys played faster because we ran a lot of calls that our guys are familiar with, without speaking too much on that.”
The defensive coordinator’s comments touch on another aspect of the preseason. Most coaches keep their scheme pretty simple in the three games that don’t count toward the team’s record, not wanting to reveal too much before the results really start to matter. After the Cardinals game, Kubiak even said that the defensive scheme was pretty simple, primarily sticking to man coverage so the coaching staff could see which cornerbacks can cover.
However, it was a different story against the Texans, as the clip below highlights how Leonard dove a little deeper into the playbook.
But again, how the team performs in August doesn’t mean much in the big picture, as the following four months (plus a few weeks) are what really matter. Instead, getting his defense prepped for the regular season and growing with his players has been the first-time play-caller’s primary focus over the summer.
“I’m really just thinking about improving with the guys,” Leonard explained. “You’re really over the scheme [in the preseason]. And you can get into your own head, what to show, what not to show. I wanted our play style to improve from game one to game two, and I think we did that.
“I just focus on what I’m asking these guys to do. Klint talks all the time about our operation, substitutions, getting in and out of the huddle, a sense of urgency to get lined up, safety rotation, like that’s really been the focus over all of those things, of improving with that.”
That’s a fair statement and what any coach should be paying extra attention to during training camp, especially with a young team like the Raiders. But the training wheels are coming off soon, as Leonard will face his first major test in his new role on Sept. 13, when the Miami Dolphins come into town and the final score matters.
