Offensive Coordinator Klay Kubiak Press Conference

Offensive Coordinator Klay Kubiak

Press Conference – October 22, 2026

San Francisco 49ers

Potentially a big piece of your offense with WR Mike Evans out. How do you compensate when you’ve got a guy who does so much for your process?

“Guys got to step up. The guys who’ve been rolling in there these past few weeks and who’ve been working. The young guys who’ve been working since camp that we’ve been seeing their growth and development. It’s a big moment for those guys. If Mike’s not able to go, then guys got to step up and we have full confidence in them. Mike’s a heck of a player and he’s been huge for us this year, but we’re very confident in the people that we have going right now and they’ve all been working. They’ve all been straining to prepare, to get better every week and I’m excited to see who can step up.”

How is WR Christian Kirk catching up since he missed so much time?

“Good. He looks good. We got him back into practice last week and you can see him getting better this week for sure. He’s a guy who’s been preparing mentally, so it’s been impressive to see him step in and just be really sharp on the details, just from the mental side of playing the position. He looks good this week and hopefully he keeps going this next practice and we can see how he looks on the weekend.”

The few times the ball has gone to WR Jordan Watkins this year, he’s made plays. What does he need to do to earn more targets and opportunities at this point?

“It’s nothing to do with him. He’s doing a heck of a job and Jordan’s playing the right way down in and down out. We’ve been really happy with him. Sometimes it’s just circumstances and where the ball goes. There were things in the game we were trying to get to him and the ball ended up going the other way, so it’s not really amount of targets. He’s doing everything right and the ball is going to find him because he’s playing the right way. Jordan’s just got to keep going and the ball’s going to go where it goes, just like every down. The way Jordan’s approaching every play and playing the right way and doing his assignment the right way, fortunate things are going to keep happening for him, so just keep him going.”

What do you think of his route running, his separation? What does the film show? Is he doing all the things that you guys want him to do?

“100%. He’s doing a great job. He’s practicing really well too. He’s gotten better as a player. That’s what we’ve asked him to do is keep working, keep pushing himself. He’s grown a lot as he stepped up more and been more involved in our offense and I expect that to continue to happen. Jordan’s doing everything right and, like I said, when guys approach things that way, good things tend to happen so we’re just going to keep going with him.”

When you look at a guy like Christian Kirk and WR Brandin Cooks, what are the challenges for them trying to step into their roles and how do you combat those challenges going into a week like this where they could be two of the top targets?

“That’s just the challenge of missing time and guys getting reps with our offense and getting reps with our quarterback and getting coached on things throughout camp and throughout the whole season that they’ve kind of missed out on those reps. But that’s the NFL. You’re going to lose guys. Guys are going to step into your building and be expected to step up and play. The thing about those two guys is they’re vets. They know that. They know what’s expected of them. They know the challenge of, ‘Hey, I haven’t had a lot of practice here, but they need me and I’m going to be ready’. They know what it takes to be ready for game day and that’s why they’re here. That’s why we love those guys is because they’ve been preparing the right way and they’ve been doing everything they can do, but it’s a huge challenge for anyone just to step into a role and be ready to go. That’s why those guys have been playing in this league for a while, they’re ready to do that and they know how to prepare.”

With RB Kaelon Black, I know you guys like how decisive he is. Is there an element of it needing to slow down a little bit for him too?

“I like him playing decisively. I like him playing fast and I like him making fast decisions with the ball. I think some of it’s too, just sometimes you don’t get into a rhythm when you’re kind of the number two ball carrier, you’re not seeing a lot of carries, but you want a guy to go in there and hit it and you want a guy to see what he sees and be decisive. I think Kaelon, the more experience he has, maybe the more reps he has of seeing things develop differently, knowing when he can kind of be more picky or when he needs to be more decisive. But at the end of the day, that’s what we want him to be. We want him to play fast, play decisively and if he plays that way, I think he’s going to have success.”

Is there an element of tweaking how fast he does need to hit it with an outside zone versus running power?

“There’s no difference to me. No matter what run scheme we call, no matter what track we put him on, everything’s decisive. Everything’s played fast and with speed. There’s different landmarks that you’re trying to hit. There’s different guys you’re reading, but play the game the same way no matter what play is called. I love where his mind’s at. I love how he’s hitting it. I think Kaelon probably said, ‘Yeah, I missed a few things here or there,’ but every player does and we’ve just got to keep going with him, keep coaching him.”

Is that one of those things where you’d rather him be that way than the opposite?

“100%. Hit it, be decisive, play aggressive. We’ll coach you when we want to. We’ll correct you when we think we need to, but we want him playing decisively.”

I think a lot of people feel like Atlanta Falcons S Xavier Watts and Atlanta Falcons S Jessie Bates III might be one of the better safety tandems going, but they’re 29th in pass defense. What are you seeing in their secondary?

“I don’t ever look at stats. I try to look at the scheme and the players they have and between those two guys, you see guys who know how to play really tight man coverage with good leverage. With Bates, he’s a veteran. He’s been playing a long time. He’s a really smart player. Those are two good players. They’re ball hawks. They make a ton of plays on the ball. You look back to last year and you see guys that are tracking the ball down the field. They’re a special group, so I don’t look at the numbers. I just see the players and I see what you see. I see really talented guys, a back end that’s been playing together for a few years in terms of knowing a similar type of scheme. [Defensive coordinator] Raheem [Morris] was there and they’ve kept some similar principles. They play together. It’s like any other team. You get hit on a few things and your numbers are inflated one way or the other, but these guys are talented. They play the right way and it’s a big challenge for us. It was last year, so we’ve got to be ready for it.”

QB Brock Purdy over the years has built up a lot of natural trust with RB Christian McCaffrey and TE George Kittle in the passing game. Is there something that you guys can do to help him accelerate the process of getting to that level with some of the new guys like Kirk and Cooks, or is that just something that comes with time?

“It’s time on task. There’s no secret formula to getting whatever a rhythm is or getting guys more comfortable with each other. They’ve got to go out there and practice. They’ve got to go out there and get the reps live. They’ve got to get the trust together and that just takes time on task. It takes reps and that’s what they’re out there working for.”

This team runs the ball and they stop the run. They make teams one-dimensional. How are they doing that? What does their run defense look like?

“They play extremely hard up front to me. You’ve got guys that, they come off the ball, they play violent, they fly around, they swarm to the football. That’s what makes a good run defense. It’s tough. They’ve got secondary guys who tackle, they’ve got safeties who fit up in the run game. It’s a huge challenge, and you couple that with an offense that wants to control the ball and it makes it hard to stay on the field. It makes it hard to get runs in the game. So, that’s the big challenge for us this week is we’ve got to have a mindset to run the football. We’re going to try to keep that offense off the field because they’re explosive and they can control a game, so that’s what we’ve got ahead of us and that’s the challenge.”