It's time to see what Klint Kubiak can do
There are challenges facing Kubiak in his debut as playcaller, but he has the support of his players
By Sam Ekstrom
EAGAN — Mike Zimmer claims he remembers his bad games more clearly than his good ones, so his first attempt as an NFL playcaller is etched in his brain.
“I think I gave up 200 yards rushing that day,” the Vikings head coach said. “I think they onside kicked us the first kickoff and then it was pretty ugly after that.”
Eagles 41, Cowboys 14 was the score on Sept. 3, 2000 when Zimmer debuted as the Dallas defensive coordinator. Indeed, David Akers successfully onside-kicked to start the game, and the 200 yards Zimmer’s ‘Boys gave up on the ground was actually 306 total, 201 of them to Duce Staley.
Nowhere to go but up, right Zim?
“Luckily,” he said, “we persevered.”
You never forget the first time on headset, and Zimmer still remembers his as he nears 400 games called on defense. On the other side of the ball, Sunday will be Klint Kubiak’s first regular season game calling plays. He’s the second debuting playcaller the Vikings have unveiled since late 2018 when Kevin Stefanski replaced John DeFilippo in-season.
The move worked brilliantly as Stefanski went 12-7 and won a playoff game in his short stint as coordinator before becoming one of league’s most valuable young head coaches in Cleveland. Nobody is mentioning Kubiak in head coaching conversations yet, but in a league where every team wants the next young offensive mind, Kubiak fits the criteria as a playcaller that could quickly climb the ladder.
That is, if he proves his mettle as a playcaller.
Calling the game
Being an offensive coordinator is a multi-faceted job that encompasses teaching, researching and interacting with players. But if you’re great at all those things and not calling plays, well, that probably means you’re a quarterbacks coach.
Klint Kubiak got three dry runs in the preseason but it never felt as authentic as it should. His starting quarterback only played a handful of series and was not outfitted with most of his playmakers, while both Vikings backups, Jake Browning and Kellen Mond, were raw and seemingly overwhelmed.
Week 1 at Cincinnati will be the real thing.
For some perspective on debuting as a playcaller, Purple Insider spoke with Vince Varpness, who started his coaching career as a grad assistant under Glen Mason at the University of Minnesota. He called plays for St. Olaf in 2013 and is currently the head coach at Burnsville High School.
“A lot of the things that you do to prepare to call a game for the first time are things you learned from the staffs that you've been on,” Varpness said, “so I kind of took the approach from the University of Minnesota when I was up there working with those guys. A lot of times as a first-time coordinator you almost over-analyze it. The big mistake is you try to do too much — more than what the players can handle. You sometimes get so schematic that you lose track of the matchups. With this play, who are we matched up against, and who's the best player to get the ball against the matchup situation?”
As Varpness points out, your offense is shaped by who you’ve worked with. In Kubiak’s case, there are plenty of college influences from his years at Texas A&M and Kansas, not to mention his first stint with the Vikings when he worked under Bill Musgrave and Norv Turner doing quality control.
The anchoring factor, which may keep Kubiak grounded, is the influence of his father’s scheme, the tried-and-true wide zone that should keep Kubiak from over-analyzing. And Zimmer is the compass that will keep him pointed that way.
“At the end of the day,” said Zimmer, when asked what he’s been telling Kubiak, “I think it's important we are who we are all the time, whether that's offense, defense or special teams. You got to be who you are and make little adjustments to the things you can do well.”
It’s reasonable to expect a hiccup or two in the early season, but Kubiak’s ability to self scout be another test of his acumen; recognizing what’s working and emphasizing those elements.
“I think the easy way to say it is when we turn the film on after practice and we find out what we’re doing well,” said Kubiak said, “that’s what we want to major in.”
And on the other end of the spectrum, being honest about why things weren’t working.
“You analyze, is that a coaching adjustment that needs to be made?” said Varpness. “Maybe we're not teaching something the right way if players are making the same mistakes over and over again. Or is it an individual player?”
Kubiak grew up in a football family, says Varpness, and has toiled for years to get to this point. The process shouldn’t overwhelm him, and there’s no time to have nerves or regrets — not when you have to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning and fix the mistakes.
“Obviously they're excited about it, they're in it and they're locked in and they're not even thinking about being a first-year coordinator anymore,” Varpness said. “They're just trying to win a football game. After the game I think that's when it really kind of sinks in, after you've had that time and did the first game and then you can sit back for a couple minutes after the game and kind of take it all in. Then it's right back at it at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock or whatever time they get up and they're back to work the next day.”
As for Varpness’s debut? It was a win, 37-18. St. Olaf’s only win of the season.
First impressions
Here’s the thing about the league’s best young playcallers: Many of them were good right away. Stefanski had the Vikings ranked eighth in offense. Matt Nagy was sixth with the Chiefs. Kyle Shanahan (Houston) and Sean McVay (Washington) were 10th. Sean Payton led the Giants to the Super Bowl in 2000.
Most of those coordinators had the fortune of falling into good situations with the quarterback and/or head coach, which Kubiak has as well. Inheriting an offense that was 11th in scoring last season under his father’s watch and returned many of its starters — and is supported by a quality defense on paper — sets him up for success. His quarterback, Kirk Cousins, is also used to working with first-timers.
“I was with Sean McVay when he was young, basically a first-time play caller and then with Kevin and now with Klint,” Cousins said. “It’s such a small sample size early -- kind of like how the preseason is that way, where you have one preseason game and that’s all you really have to go off of being evaluated, and then same with early in this season. After one game or two games it’s different from when you have a body of work to look over 17 games. You just kind of play the course and what ended up happening with Kevin and our offense over a longer season was different than what happened after one, two, three, four games. There’s a little bit of not even trying to write a story or take a picture too early and just let things play out on a bigger sample size.”
For what it’s worth, Cousins’ only two playoff appearances came in 2015 and 2019, when he operated with first-time playcallers.
Stefanski was Cousins’ QB coach before he took over coordinator duties, and Kubiak and Cousins have cultivated the same type of relationship over the previous two years, which could pay dividends. The two have gotten comfortable with each other since 2019, when Kubiak joined the staff.
“It’s kind of an ongoing conversation. ‘Hey, what do you want to do here? What do you like?’” Cousins said. “Many times if I ask a question he’ll return it with a question: ‘What do you like?’ So there’s just kind of an ongoing dialogue. That really goes back two years to the conversations we’ve had in so many different meetings and getting a feel for how we want this thing to look.”
If things looked the same as they did under Stefanski or Gary Kubiak, not many people would complain if the statistical bottom lines remained the same. Zimmer has endorsed using the same scheme, and the assumption is that the Kubiak apple won’t fall far from the tree when it comes to playcalling philosophy.
Some players have hinted at minor adjustments, however, that make this offense its own entity.
“This is the 2021 Minnesota Vikings offense,” said receiver Adam Thielen. “This isn't what it's been in the past, this isn't last year's offense, this isn't two years ago's offense. … We're going to be doing the same playbook for the most part, but there's things that [Kubiak] likes, there's things that Kirk likes, there's things that he knows that we do really well as an offense and he's going to implement those, put them in, he's going to make them kind of our standard and what we do, and he's very confident in it.”
The preseason rollout of the offense was vanilla, but that’s commonplace in today’s NFL. If Kubiak has any wrinkles up his sleeve, we’re likely to see them on Sunday.
Player approval
The reception for Kubiak has been positive among the team’s offensive skill players, in large measure because of his willingness to listen. His age, just 34 years old, may also help his relatability. He’s a millennial like most of his players.
Kubiak isn’t looking to be a dictator. He runs the offense more like a democracy.
“It’s not about who’s right, it’s about what’s right,” Kubiak said. “We got a lot of veteran guys that I have a lot of respect for and I built relationships with, and I want to do what they do best.
“Just definitely take input from everybody, our coaching staff included, including coach Zimmer, and when it looks good on film and our guys are executing at a high level and have confidence in it, those are the plays we’re going to ride with.”
They’ll be riding primarily with Dalvin Cook, whose role won’t change much from one Kubiak to another. He’s still going to be a workhorse.
When Stefanski debuted in Week 15 of the 2018 season, he leaned on the running game. Cook and Latavius Murray combined for 34 carries, 204 yards and three touchdowns — a foreshadowing of the run-heavy scheme that has stuck with the Vikings offense ever since.
“I think Klint does a great job of coming to talk to his players, just being a coach,” said Cook, who’s had five offensive coordinators in his five seasons. “I love that about him, man. He's here for us, he tries to hear us out as much as he can, so I love Klint as a coach.”
Cook’s performance rarely wanes when healthy. He’s the constant in this offense, whereas Cousins is the variable. Kubiak’s ability to extract the most consistent version of Cousins could be what propels the offense from good to great in 2021.
“I don’t know that I would quiet down because this guy’s been around the block more or I would speak up more because it’s his first year of being a coordinator,” Cousins said. “I don’t find a need to say as much to him because he already knows where I’m coming from. He already knows what I’m thinking to a great degree, and I think that’s been valuable.”
Fans may be entering the season with skepticism about the arrangement, having seen the offense scuffling in its limited reps in the preseason and possibly reading about Kubiak’s move from the sideline to the coaches box as a new playcalling location. For those on the outside, Kubiak’s performance is one of many unknowns for the ‘21 team, but heading into Week 1, he has the confidence of the players that know him best.
“I think when you have a guy that's in a leadership role that exudes that confidence, it kind of trickles down,” said Thielen, “so when he's confident in calling those plays, when he's confident in installing those plays, it makes us confident in knowing that, hey, he trusts us to make this play.”
Whether it’s giving up 300 rushing yards like Zimmer or racking up 200 yards like Stefanski, there’s a wide range of outcomes for Kubiak’s debut.
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