The Las Vegas Raiders made one of the more underrated moves of the offseason when they hired Klint Kubiak away from Seattle. Fresh off a Super Bowl win with the Seahawks, Kubiak is now tasked with turning a Raiders offense that struggled last year into something that can hang in the AFC West.
And if you’re looking for a clue about how he might do it, look at what he did with Jaxon Smith-Njigba in Seattle.
Smith-Njigba wasn’t just good last season. He was the entire passing game. He accounted for 44.1% of Seattle’s receiving yards and got targeted on more than a third of Sam Darnold’s dropbacks. That usage rate basically never happens. And it got him Offensive Player of the Year.
Now Kubiak walks into a similar situation in Vegas. Tight end Brock Bowers had a rough 2025 season after putting together one of the best rookie tight end campaigns ever in 2024. But the talent is clearly still there. And the receiving room around him? Not exactly loaded.
What the Raiders have at receiver
ESPN’s Ben Solak put it bluntly: the Raiders’ wide receiver group is unspectacular. Tre Tucker, Jalen Nailor, Jack Bech, Dont’e Thornton Jr. — those guys are fine, but none of them are going to scare a defensive coordinator. Solak called Bowers the lone star of the passing attack.
“Given the unspectacular nature of the Raiders’ wide receiver room, it’s fair to call Bowers the lone star of the Raiders’ passing attack,” Solak wrote. “Given Kubiak’s willingness to feed his lone star nearly unprecedented volume, it stands to reason that Bowers is about to see a huge uptick in total opportunities. If Kubiak is who we think he is as a play designer, those opportunities will be high quality.”
It’s not hard to see why Solak likes the fit. Kubiak fed Smith-Njigba like a No. 1 wideout last season. Bowers is a tight end, but he’s not your typical tight end. He’s a rare athlete and a matchup problem for just about any defense. He’s not quite as smooth a route-runner as Smith-Njigba — almost nobody is — but he doesn’t need to be. He’s a different kind of weapon.
How this could look different
The workload might look similar in terms of volume, but the way Kubiak uses Bowers will probably be different from how he used Smith-Njigba. Smith-Njigba worked mostly out of the slot and beat people with quickness and precision. Bowers is more of a seam-stretcher and a yards-after-catch threat. He can line up inline, in the slot, or even out wide. Kubiak has shown he can design an offense around one guy. Now he gets to do it with a tight end who can do things most tight ends can’t.
Of course, none of this guarantees Bowers will hit Smith-Njigba-level numbers. Teams will game plan for him. And the Raiders still need decent quarterback play to make it work. But the blueprint is there. Kubiak just drew it up in Seattle.
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