The Las Vegas Raiders officially began their 2026 offseason schedule on Tuesday. No pad. No live representative. No, Fernando Mendoza is not taking pictures in the silver and black just yet. Just meetings, strength and conditioning work, and rehab of players coming back from injury.
Sounds boring, right?
it.
What happens in those first days, especially how Clint Kubiak runs them, will tell us more about the direction of this franchise than any free agent signing or mock draft projection. Culture doesn’t start in training camp. It doesn’t start with a draft. It starts now, in a building in Henderson, Nevada, with a first-year head coach trying to establish something this organization has lacked for too long: a coherent identity.
Kubiak has a chance to set the tone for whatever is to come this week. How he uses it is what matters.
Meetings are where culture is made – or broken
Stage one is essentially a classroom stage. The players are in the building, they’re conditioning their bodies and they’re sitting in the meeting room. For Kubiak, it’s really an opportunity, not a limitation.
Every new coaching staff faces the same challenge in Year 1: Players are bringing habits, tendencies and, frankly, the baggage of whoever came before them (ahem, Pete Carroll!). The Raiders have had substantial coaching changes in recent years, with some of the veterans having seen this film before. They know how to nod in meetings and wait to see if the new guy is really different. Three coaches will do this to one player in three years.
Clint Kubiak really needs to be different.
This means that messages in those rooms may not be as normal this week. It can’t be “we’ll work hard and hold each other accountable” boilerplate. Raider Nation has heard it. The players in that building have heard it. What they haven’t heard, and what this organization hasn’t had for years, is a clear, specific, non-negotiable vision of how this team will operate. Just not aggressively. Just not in a planned manner. Culturally.
This is Kubiak’s chance to draw that line in the sand before even throwing a single ball.
Max Crosby sets the tone if Kubiak empowers him to do so
Here’s something that isn’t discussed enough: Max Crosby’s presence in that building this week is just as important as Kubiak said.
Crosby’s trade with Baltimore was voided. He is an attacker. And does Kubiak still fully understand it, Crosby is the most important cultural asset he has. Not because of his rush numbers, although they speak for themselves, but because of what Crosby represents to every player who walks through that door.
He decided to stay. He could force his way out. He didn’t.
This means a lot in a locker room environment where players want to see who really believes in what is being built in Vegas. If Kubiak is smart, he’s leaning on Crosby in those early meetings. Not in a fanciful, “let’s cheer on the star” way — but in a genuine acknowledgment that the approach of the veteran leadership and coaching staff has to work in the same direction, or none of it will work.
A coaching staff that sidelines its own culture bearers in Year 1 is a coaching staff that is already behind.
What Kubiak’s approach says about his leadership style
New head coaches fall into two camps as the early offseason begins. Some people treat phase one as a formality, like getting bodies into the building, checking compliance boxes and saving the actual setup for OTAs and training camp. Others consider it the basis.
Given what Jon Spytek and the Raiders have built this offseason, Clint Kubiak can’t afford to treat this as a formality. They are having a voluntary veteran minicamp April 20-22, three days before the draft begins in Pittsburgh. That minicamp, combined with the first two weeks of Phase One, gives Kubiak about three weeks to establish the relational equity he’ll need when real competition begins.
Three weeks is not long. But it is enough to show the players what kind of head coach you are. Does he know their names before he knows your snap counts, do you walk the same way in the practice facility, are the cameras running or not, are the standards you preach the standards you actually enforce.
Attention is paid to those things. They are discussed. They go from veteran to young players faster than any plan.
All eyes are on Kubiak and the tone he sets
Tuesday is the beginning of something. Is this the start of something real. Will this be a cultural change that will actually stick in Las Vegas or not? It depends on what Clint Kubiak actually decides to do these early, quiet, unnatural weeks.
The Raiders have plenty of big moments and bold announcements. What they’re missing is the foundation beneath all this.
The first phase is starting from Tuesday. Now the foundation is laid.
Scott Gulbranson is the editor-in-chief of our Silver & Black TODAY Las Vegas Raiders community, a member of the Pro Football Writers of America, and host of Silver & Black TODAY on 101.5 KDAWN in Las Vegas.
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