Raiders NT Reggie Kinlaw Was Nosy for Opponents

The Las Vegas Raiders have a long history of disruptors on the defensive line, and Reggie Kinlaw is often overlooked when people reflect on that history.

Nose tackle Reggie Kinlaw was another member of the Oakland-Los Angeles Raiders who didn’t get much recognition except from his peers, who knew how valuable he was in the middle of the defense.

The 6-2, 250-pound Kinlaw became a starter as a rookie after the Raiders selected him in the 12th round (No. 329 overall) of the 1979 NFL Draft out of Oklahoma, and he was a mainstay on the defense even though he never received any All-Pro or Pro Bowl honors during his eight-year NFL career.

“Reggie was the real hero of our defense,” All-Pro cornerback Lester Hayes recalled. “He was so quick, that offenses always had to double-team him. That would allow us, in the secondary, to make plays.”

It’s not difficult to see why Kinlaw might have been overlooked because he played on teams that included defensive stars such as Hayes, Ted Hendricks, Rod Martin, Matt Millen, Mike Haynes, Howie Long, Lyle Alzado and Greg Townsend.

All those guys did, including Kinlaw, was carry the Raiders to victories in Super Bowl XV over the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10, at the Louisiana Superdome at the end of the 1980 season, and in Super Bowl XVIII over the Washington Redskins, 38-9, at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Fla., to close out the 1983 season.

“The whole Raider operation wouldn’t have worked against the Redskins if 245-pound Reggie Kinlaw, a small, swift middle guard in an era of pachyderms, hadn't played inspired football and patrolled the middle like a minesweeper,” a reporter wrote in Sports Illustrated. “My MVP would have been Kinlaw.”

Running back Marcus Allen was voted the most valuable player after rushing for 191 yards, including a brilliant 74-yard touchdown in the third quarter that blew the game open for the Raiders at 28-9.

However, there was plenty of talk in both locker rooms afterward about Kinlaw’s influence on the game, but he took it all in stride.

“As long as I was playing football, I just wanted to make plays,” said Kinlaw, who played the last two seasons of his career with the Seattle Seahawks. “I wanted to see my name in the paper, but mostly, I just liked to make tackles; I liked to make tackles for losses.

“If I had a double-team, I would take on my responsibility, you know. But if I had a single block, in the back of my mind I’d say: ‘Get off this block, go find the ball and make a tackle.’ I did not like it when the linebackers were making all the plays and the defensive ends were making all the plays. I wasn’t having that.”

Once again, we don’t know how many tackles Kinlaw had in his career because they were not an official statistic in the NFL at that time, but there is no doubt he would rank among the Raiders’ all-time leaders if they were.

Kinlaw did have four sacks as a rookie and two more the following year, but he became such a run-stopper that he made only two more in his career for a total of eight.

However, Kinlaw realized the dream he had when selected by the Raiders.

“I told myself when I got drafted, which felt really good: ‘I’m going to make this team,’” Kinlaw recalled several years ago. “‘No matter what it takes, I’m going to make this team.’ You go through practice, you practice against the second-team offense, and I just said to myself: ‘I know I can do this.’ I was just blessed that I was in the right place at the right time.”

Although Kinlaw is overlooked overall, members of Raider Nation remember him as the man in the middle of two Super Bowl champions.

The Las Vegas Raiders open training camp for the entire team on July 25, 2023.

The Silver and Black open the preseason by hosting the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Aug. 13, at 4 p.m. EDT/1 p.m. PDT.

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