Dylan Laube scored his first regular-season NFL touchdown in New England on Sunday, and the Las Vegas Raiders running back admitted it did not feel like much at the time. The Raiders were already down by multiple scores in a 45-17 loss to the Patriots. “I think I was just trying to get the momentum back on the team and ultimately we were still down, so it’s tough to kind of be super excited about it,” Laube told Raiders.com’s Paul Gutierrez in a sit-down the team posted this week. “It didn’t really hit me until the end of the game, really after the game when I was with, like, my family and friends.”
The ball is now back home with his parents. “At the end of the day, yeah, it’s a super cool experience,” he said. “That’s the dream right there, but it just stinks that we’re in such a tough position.”
“The easiest job on the field”
Laube, in his third season, has made his name on kickoffs. Gutierrez put his average at 30.3 yards per return, with nine returns of at least 20 yards, three of at least 40 and a long of 53, and the team says he ranks third in the NFL in yards per kickoff return. Gutierrez also noted the Raiders have not returned a kickoff for a touchdown since 2011. Laube gave the credit to the 10 players in front of him. “I think I’m doing the easiest job on the field with that, because the front nine and 10 in the back is doing everything else,” he said. “Without them, and the coaches too, just, like, scheming it up, it just sets us up for such great field positioning.”
Asked what goes through his head once he breaks into open field, he said: nothing. “You don’t think about anything,” he said. “It’s just like in that flow state, just like with the adrenaline rush to it, just go, go, go.”
Kubiak: “He’s an ascending player”
Against the Patriots, Laube also had career highs on offense with seven touches, four carries and three catches. Gutierrez said he had asked head coach Klint Kubiak what Laube had done to earn a bigger role, and Kubiak’s answer was simple: he is an ascending player. Laube, who by Gutierrez’s count is on his third head coach and fifth offensive coordinator in three NFL seasons, said that meant a lot. “That’s the goal of the year, is to impress the team, the coaches,” he said. “So just to hear that from coach too, just kind of gives you, as a player, just so much confidence.” He added that the game script played a part, with the Raiders trailing and throwing more. “That’s kind of my role in the offense,” he said. “We have a lot of great backs in the room, so we just kind of each have our own kind of system and type of plays.”
The trip to Foxborough was also a homecoming of sorts for the Long Island native, who played his college football at New Hampshire. He said he saw old teammates, friends and family before and after the game. “It’s basically like my second home there,” he said, and the small-school path still drives him: “Just a gritty, blue-collar school too. Just kind of always having that chip on your shoulder.”
The tracksuits
Laube is also known in the building for his pregame tracksuits. He said the look started in high school and comes partly from growing up in New York and loving The Sopranos. “I was like, listen, I don’t have, like, a pregame fit like everyone else, and, like, this is my thing,” he said. He buys two or three a year and is now at “like 10 to 12.” A few came from a Ukrainian company he tracked down on Instagram after seeing the tracksuits in the movie The Gentlemen.
Winning every phase against Buffalo
The 3-2 Raiders are coming off two straight losses after a 3-0 start, and Laube said the fix against the 4-1 Bills is simple. “I think the first three weeks, we won every single phase,” he said. “And our last two weeks, we’ve lost either a phase, two or three. I think we decided to go back to our fundamentals and just win every single phase.” On the Bills’ special teams, he called them “a very big, physical team” and said the Raiders cannot lean on gimmicks. “I think we can’t do too much with trick plays and these special plays and stuff like that,” he said. “I think we just got to do our base stuff fundamentally and just play our game.”
His message to Raiders fans was patience. “This is a whole different team this year, and we’ve showed it every single week so far,” he said. “It’s such a long season. It’s so hard to even go 17-0. If you’re a great, great team, you win over 10 games, but that’s still, what, seven losses. So you got to trust the process. And I think we’re going to have a really good bounce-back week this week.” The Raiders host the Bills at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, October 18, at 4:25 p.m. ET.
No published comments yet. Start the conversation.