The Ravens have completed an interview with Seattle Seahawks Offensive Coordinator Klint Kubiak for their head coach opening.
Here are five things to know about Kubiak:
His Seahawks offense is firing on all cylinders.
The Seahawks are the NFC's top seed with a 14-3 record. While Seattle's defense under head coach and former Ravens Defensive Coordinator Mike Macdonald has led the way, the Seahawks offense has also been exceptional.
Seattle finished the season ranked No. 3 in points per game (28.4) and No. 8 in yards (351.4).
In his first year with the Seahawks, veteran quarterback Sam Darnold was voted to his second Pro Bowl. Darnold topped 4,000 passing yards for a second straight year.
Kubiak also found ways to unlock the full potential of wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who led the league with 1,793 receiving yards. Smith-Njigba had the fifth-most targets (163).
Kubiak and Macdonald have been a strong pairing together and Kubiak has had a front-row seat in watching how Macdonald has elevated the Seahawks.
He's a coach's son who has been around football his entire life.
Baltimore knows the Kubiak name because Klint is the son of Gary Kubiak, who was the Ravens' offensive coordinator during a highly successful 2014 season.
Highly respected and well-liked inside the building, Gary helped rejuvenate the Ravens' offense en route to the playoffs. His stretch zone and play-action scheme helped Joe Flacco post career highs in passing yards (3,986) and touchdowns (27), and Justin Forsett run for a career-high 1,266 yards.
Klint has been around football his entire life. He was 5 years old when his father got his first job in coaching and 7 when his dad started his 27-year NFL coaching career.
The two coached together for a year (2016) in Gary's final season as a head coach, then paired up again in 2019 and 2020 in Minnesota for Gary's last years in the NFL.
"I definitely learned through osmosis just being around him," Klint said ahead of the 2021 season with the Vikings after his father retired.
"The main thing that comes to mind is treating people with respect, being organized, being demanding, and being fair. Everything else will take care of itself."
Klint's younger brother (by one year), Klay, is the offensive coordinator for the 49ers. The two coached together in San Francisco for one season in 2023, with Kliff serving as the passing game coordinator and Klay as the assistant quarterbacks coach.
He comes with a defined system that blends the run and passing game well.
The Ravens consider themselves to be a running team first. The Seahawks ran it exactly the same number of times as Baltimore did this season – 507 times.
The Seahawks weren't quite as efficient running the ball, as they ranked tied for 10th in the league with 123.3 rushing yards per game and averaged 4.1 yards per carry. But Kubiak stuck with it, deploying a two-headed monster of Kenneth Walker III (1,027 rushing yards, five touchdowns) and Zach Charbonnet (730 yards, 12 touchdowns).
The Kubiak system is predicated on zone runs, particularly outside zone. It utilizes athletic, mobile offensive linemen to create horizontal movement and open up lanes. Off of that comes play-action passes.
Darnold has the fifth-most play-action passes in the league this season. The Seahawks' passing attack had the NFL's third-highest success percentage, according to Next Gen Stats, at 51.6%.
That blend of run and pass has long been a strength of the Kubiaks.
He's hopped around in recent years, learning along the way.
While his father was obviously a major influence, Klint has also learned from a host of other coaches along the way.
Klint has coached for five different teams over the past five years: Seahawks, Saints (offensive coordinator), 49ers (passing game coordinator), Broncos (passing game coordinator & quarterbacks coach), and Vikings (offensive coordinator).
In large part, the reason is because his head coaches have been let go in multiple spots. Mike Zimmer (2021), Nathaniel Hackett (2022), and Dennis Allen (2024) were all let go following their year together.
However, that has also meant that Kubiak has had the opportunity to learn from a lot of different coaches, including Kliff Kingsbury during their college days together at Texas A&M and Kyle Shanahan in 2023 with the 49ers.
Klint didn't think he was going to be a coach.
Even though he said he feels "blessed" to be a coach's kid, Kubiak didn't envision himself as a coach when he was growing up.
He was a safety at Colorado State University from 2005-2009 and a senior captain. He was invited to play in the East-West Shrine Game but didn't get picked up in the NFL.
"I was naïve enough to think I would play in the NFL for 15 years. I put all my time and energy into that," Kubiak said. "I just developed a love for the coaching side of it. It certainly wasn't something I planned on, but it was something I grew to have a great passion for."
