Report: Jets Interview Broncos QBs Coach Klint Kubiak for OC
Despite the animated corpse of an offense the Denver Broncos fielded in 2022, NFL teams have expressed interest in hiring several of its architects. Former Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett has garnered an offensive coordinator interview from the New York Jets.
And so has Broncos QBs coach/passing game coordinator Klint Kubiak, according to NFL.com's Tom Pelissero.
"The Jets are interviewing Klint Kubiak today for their offensive coordinator job, per source. Kubiak was the Vikings' OC in 2021 and spent last season with the Broncos," Pelissero tweeted on Sunday.
The son of Super Bowl 50-winning head coach Gary Kubiak, Klint is a Colorado State alum. The former safety got his NFL coaching start with the Minnesota Vikings back in 2013 and joined his dad's staff in Denver back in 2016.
When Gary stepped down as head coach following the 2016 campaign, Klint stuck around under his successor, Vance Joseph, as an offensive assistant. Klint's real break came in 2019 when he joined his father in Minnesota as a QBs coach.
Following Gary's departure from Minnesota, the Vikings promoted Klint to offensive coordinator. It was Klint's first shot at calling plays in the NFL.
The returns on Klint's play-calling were hit-and-miss, especially in the first half of the 2021 campaign, but he started to find a groove down the stretch before his boss, Mike Zimmer, and the entire Vikings coaching staff was fired at the end of the season.
When Hackett was hired as head coach in Denver, he brought Kubiak with him to serve as Russell Wilson's position coach. But Klint was also highly involved in the offensive playbook, especially as it related to the passing game.
After Hackett relinquished play-calling duties, the baton got passed to Kubiak instead of Broncos offensive coordinator Justin Outten. Although it could be argued that Kubiak's play-calling gave Wilson and the Broncos a modest lift, it was negligible.
The Broncos fired Hackett with two games left to go, and interim head coach Jerry Rosburg made a big change at play-caller as one of his first decisions, giving the duties to Outten. Kubiak went back to serving as Wilson's coach on the sideline.
Suffice to say, the Broncos' offense was light years better under Outten, but it was such a small sample size (two games) that it's hard to jump to any meaningful conclusions.
It's interesting that both Kubiak and Hackett are interviewing for the same offensive coordinator job in New York. Why the Jets find any interest in either coach is surprising, considering how the offense Hackett and Kubiak presided over was the worst in the NFL by a mile.
Still, Hackett has skins on the wall as an offensive coordinator. He was an incompetent head coach, but as a coordinator, Hackett has had some success in the NFL.
You can't really say that for Kubiak. But working with Wilson so closely this past season seems to have elevated his NFL profile, and perhaps helped to finally get him out of his father's shadow somewhat.
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