Travis Smith’s biggest challenge as Las Vegas Raiders defensive line coach

Travis Smith is no stranger to the Silver & Black.

His NFL coaching career began with the Oakland variant in 2012 as a defensive assistant and continued on 10 years with his final season a 2021 campaign with the Las Vegas version.

And after three seasons as the Chicago Bears defensive line coach (2022-24) and a one-year stint as the Tennessee Titans defensive run game coordinator, the 40-year-old Smith returns to the Las Vegas Raiders as defensive line boss. He joins the staff being assembled by new head coach Klint Kubiak and Smith slots into the defensive line boss spot vacated by Rob Leonard, who got a well-earned promotion to defensive coordinator.

Smith’s position in Las Vegas marks the fourth time he’s been given a specific task or position group to oversee. In Oakland during the 2017 season, he was the outside linebackers coach and from 2019-21 he was the assistant defensive line coach learning under Rod Marinelli for the latter two years. Then came his three-year stint in Chicago as defensive line boss and the lone season as Tennessee’s defensive run-game specialist.

Smith’s Raiders return means more direct hands-on work with the defensive line room and with his predecessor now leading the entire defense, he’ll work in unison with Leonard.

But as with every coach that Kubiak brings in (himself, too), there’s a distinct challenge that awaits. And for Smith, the item that looms largest is defensive end Maxx Crosby, specifically, the if he stays or if he goes, conundrum.

Crosby has been in the Raiders’ building early in the morning getting his work in. And when he’s appeared on a number of interviews, the well-compensated pass rusher is sporting Raiders gear.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Raiders don’t want to trade the 28-year-old (29 on Aug. 22) defensive end and if the team contemplated shipping Crosby off, it would take a Micah Parsons type compensation package which is two first-round picks and a player in return.

But what is absent is the emphatic response of: I don’t want to be traded.

Crosby is letting his actions speak for themselves and isn’t going to comment further, it seems.

Thus, Smith must operate under assumption he’ll have elite No. 98 not only creating chaos against both the pass and run this coming season, but being the lead-by-example type since the completion of his rookie season back in 2019. Crosby paced the Raiders with 10 sacks along with 73 total tackles and a team-leading 28 stops for loss this past season. No other defender reached the five-sack mark in 2025, so Crosby’s departure would leave a gaping void for Smith and Leonard to try and fill.

That’s the elephant in the room. But as mentioned above, coaching up and developing the entire defensive line room is quite the task for Smith, too.

And the Raiders’ decisions on in-house free agents, free agents that hit the open market in mid-March, the draft in April, and free agency after can all help with Smith’s job as defensive line coach. Defensive end Malcolm Koonce was a distant second in terms of sacks with 4.5 this past season. Recovering from a knee injury that wiped out his 2024 campaign, Koonce showed flashes of the same pass rusher later in 2025. But he’s an unrestricted free agent.

Then there’s Tyree Wilson, the seventh overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. The 6-foot-5 and 263-pound edge rusher has worked outside and in on the defensive line racking up four sacks along with 35 total tackles with eight tackles for loss in Year 3. Wilson’s usage and snap counts were a career-low in 2025 with 463 snaps compared to 525 in 2024 and 493 his rookie yar in 2023.

Wilson enters the fourth — and potential final year — of his rookie contract. As a first rounder, Las Vegas does have a fifth-year option available for Wilson. The decision on whether or not the Raiders exercise that option arrives this May. That would lock-in Wilson for the 2027 season at a high-value rate that has yet to be determined. For context, first-round edge rushers from the 2022 draft had fifth-year options in the range of $15 to $17 million. At that range, that’s exorbitant for a defensive end that doesn’t have the production or snaps.

Then there’s the continued progression of defensive tackles Jonah Laulu (25 years old, 51 total tackles, four sacks, eight tackles for loss in 2025), Tonka Hemingway (24, nine total tackles, four sacks, five stops for loss), JJ Pegues (24, 11 total tackles, one tackle for loss). There’s also veterans Adam Bulter (31, 50 total tackles, one sack, three stops for loss) and Thomas Booker (26, 44 total tackles, one stop for loss, seven quarterback hits).

Smith’s high-energy, attention to detail, and focus on the daily grind is a good addition to Kubiak’s staff in Las Vegas. It clicks with Leonard’s own coaching style and the double whammy of technique and effort focus will help the defense overall.

It’ll be intriguing to see how the coaching styles and energy between Smith, Leonard and the rest of the coaching staff meshes in Kubiak’s initial season as a head coach. But Smith does bring valuable coaching experience of his 14-year career so far. In 2025, the Titans run defense ranked 15th in yards allowed (1,948) and 17th in average yards per carry allowed (4.3).

Over Smith’s coaching tenure, he’s had a hand in development of key Raiders rushers such as Khalil Mack, Yannick Ngakoue, and Crosby in assistant roles. Now Smith will have full reins in his return to Silver & Black. Oh, and he’s also had to adapt to a sudden departure of a star pass rusher — when Mack was traded to the Bears. So if Crosby is shipped out, he’s no stranger to missing an elite defender.

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