Las Vegas may be coming off its first loss of the season, but Klink Kubiak is leaning into his creative side, especially in how he uses his personnel. The Raiders' first-year coach has a bunch of middling or unproven wide receivers. I don’t know if it’s the worst room in the league, but it's in the conversation.
His tight ends, however, are on the other end of the spectrum, and Kubiak is doing all he can to maximize their talent, especially with a healthy Brock Bowers (he missed the first two weeks after a meniscus cleanup). Against Kansas City last weekend, Vegas dialed up 27 (!) snaps with one or fewer wideouts on the field.
“Yeah, I can’t say enough about them,” Mike Vrabel said.
There’s a lot to dive into, especially how Kubiak is using Bowers. The Raiders rarely keep him in one spot. The former first-rounder has lined up on the outside (61 times), in the slot (45), inline (16), and even in the backfield (2). Forget “Where’s Waldo?” Bowers is even harder to find.
“I think you have to be aware of where he's at at all times,” linebacker Christian Elliss said. “You'd like to be able to get hands on him. You'd like to be able to not let (QB) Kirk (Cousins) get there.”
The Pats did a terrific job with that a week ago against Buffalo’s Dalton Kincaid. But the Bills ran Kincaid on just 17 routes in that game. Bowers will do that in the first half alone if the game flows normally. He's a different kind of animal, not just because of his skill set but because Kubiak wants Cousins to spam targets his way.
“They're going to target him 10-plus times,” Kevin Byard said. “They're trying to do whatever they can to get the ball to him, basically create space for him to be able to run open.
“But he's very savvy in his routes. He has really good hands, and then also he's really good after the catch as well. He's very strong. I think a lot of people may think he doesn't have very good top-end speed, but he finds a way to create separation. So that was going to be a challenge for us as a whole, as a defensive group, not just the safeties, but the corners, because they use him like a receiver and not like a traditional tight end.”
Vrabel told us Bowers is good on