The Seattle Seahawks are hiring former New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak to fill the same role on Seattle coach Mike Macdonald’s staff, the Seahawks announced Sunday.
Kubiak, who turns 38 next month, is the son of former NFL head coach Gary Kubiak. The younger Kubiak joined the Vikings in 2019 as the quarterbacks coach while his dad served as assistant head coach. Gary became Minnesota’s offensive coordinator in 2020, then Klint took over in 2021. He spent 2022 as the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator in Denver under Nathaniel Hackett, who turned play calling over to Kubiak midway through the season. Denver had the league’s worst scoring offense at the time of the change; they were 20th over the final eight weeks.
After spending the 2023 season as San Francisco’s passing game coordinator, Kubiak served as the New Orleans Saints’ offensive coordinator last season. The Saints scored 91 points in their first two games then quickly cooled off; they ranked 31st in scoring from Weeks 3 through 18. The Saints went on a seven-game losing streak after that hot start which led to the eventual dismissal of Saints head coach Dennis Allen.
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Why Derek Carr may have found the right fit in Klint Kubiak’s Saints offense
Injuries played a big role in the stagnant Saints offense as quarterback Derek Carr suffered abdomen and hand injuries, leading to him missing eight starts over the course of the Saints’ season. Key receivers Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed missed half the season with injuries. Nine different offensive linemen and three different quarterbacks started over the course of the season.
Despite that, running back Alvin Kamara, one of two Saints skill position players to start more than 10 games, ended his season with a career-high 950 rushing yards and his most targets in the passing game (89) since 2020. New Orleans finished 5-12, with all five wins coming under Carr.
While with the 49ers, Kubiak helped San Francisco put up 4,384 passing yards that season, fourth-most in the league and second-most in franchise history, while leading the league in offensive passing DVOA. The 49ers put up those historic numbers while averaging a league-high 8.4 net yards per pass attempt, leading to quarterback Brock Purdy’s best statistical season of his early career.
Kubiak’s last offensive coordinator role came with the Minnesota Vikings in 2021, promoted from his role as quarterbacks coach for one season before the Vikings let go of coach Mike Zimmer in favor of Kevin O’Connell. Minnesota finished 12th in the NFL EPA per dropback and 14th in points scored that season, with Kirk Cousins finishing the year with 4,221 yards, 33 touchdowns and just seven interceptions through 16 games. Minnesota finished the season with the fewest turnovers in the league.
In Denver, Kubiak rejoined the team in 2022 after serving as an offensive assistant from 2016 to 2018. Kubiak’s system did not drastically fix the Broncos at large, but Denver did see an uptick offensively by the end of the season. Under Kubiak, the Broncos broke 300 total yards of offense in six of their final eight games and scored 24 or more points in four of their last five games — a benchmark Hackett failed to clear all season.
Kubiak is also the brother of newly-promoted 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak.
What this means for the Seahawks
Assuming Geno Smith is Seattle’s starting quarterback in 2025, Kubiak will be his third play caller in four years (Smith was also the backup quarterback under offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer for two seasons). Smith had a down year statistically in 2024 while playing under first-year coordinator Ryan Grubb, who deployed a pass-heavy offense and asked a lot of the quarterback. Kubiak’s offense last year was more quarterback-friendly, which is one of the reasons Carr was so effective when healthy. Carr ranked 11th in EPA per dropback last year, one spot behind Patrick Mahomes.
Despite the injuries, New Orleans was a much better rushing team than Seattle last season, both by yardage and success rate. Macdonald would like to get that facet of the game going in 2025, not only to unlock running backs like Ken Walker III and Zach Charbonnet but also to make the offense more efficient and more dangerous in the red zone. — Michael-Shawn Dugar, Seahawks staff writer
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(Photo: Gus Stark / Getty Images)
