Las Vegas Raiders 2026 Season Preview

Floor, Not Ceiling

A ninth-hardest schedule in the league leaves little room for a fourth-place club to sneak upward in the AFC West. Still, a 3-14 team that finished 4th of 4 rarely has a lower floor than the one it just posted, and every component behind that record points toward improvement rather than collapse. Klint Kubiak's first season will not be about catching the Broncos. It will be about proving 7-10 undersells a roster that was worse on paper than it was on the field.

A Clean Slate in Vegas

Klint Kubiak inherits none of the blame for 3-14. That record dropped Las Vegas to 4th in the AFC West, and the trajectory that got them there is ugly, a slide that has this roster's outlook nearly cut in half over recent seasons. But the tape underneath last season argues the Raiders were closer than 3-14 looked. Their actual win rate sat well below what their yardage margin across the full season implied, the kind of gap that usually closes rather than compounds. Kubiak did not build this mess, and year one gives him room to simply be better than 2025 was, not to answer for it.

Points Left on the Field

A 32nd-ranked scoring offense sounds like a total teardown, but the volume tells a different story. Las Vegas averaged 245 total yards a game and still needed 17.3 yards for every point it scored, well worse than the league median of 14.3, which means the ball moved more than the scoreboard showed. That's an inefficiency problem, not a talent vacuum, and it's exactly the kind of gap that tends to close. Kirk Cousins arrives from Atlanta, where he threw for 1,721 yards and 10 touchdowns against 5 interceptions in 10 games, to try to turn those empty possessions into points behind Klint Kubiak's offense. Sacks allowed hit 64, so protecting Cousins matters more than any scheme tweak.

Kirk Cousins walks into a passing attack that ranked 28th in the league a year ago and instantly becomes its most accomplished arm. His 1,721 yards and 10 touchdowns for the Falcons came in relief duty, but that still dwarfs what Las Vegas got from Aidan O'Connell or the departed Kenny Pickett last season. Klint Kubiak inherits Cousins as a clear starter, not a competition, with Fernando Mendoza drafted first overall to watch and develop behind him. That is the real story here: a rookie quarterback taken with the top pick sitting rather than throwing. Cousins does not fix an offense that scored 14.2 points a game on his own, but he raises the floor at the position while Mendoza waits.

Ashton Jeanty carried this backfield to 975 yards behind a line that produced just 77 rushing yards per game as a team, 32nd in the league. That gap is the whole story of 2026. Klint Kubiak inherits a run scheme with real juice at the top and almost nothing proven behind it once Raheem Mostert and Zamir White departed. Dare Ogunbowale arrives from Houston as a pass-catching complement, not a real threat to Jeanty's touches, coming off 10 catches for 76 yards there. Mike Washington Jr., a fourth-round pick out of Arkansas, gives Kubiak a developmental option, but this room lives and dies with how much volume Jeanty can absorb behind a bottom-tier offensive line.

Tre Tucker's 696 yards were the lone bright spot in an offense that scored just 14.2 points a game, and Las Vegas spent the offseason surrounding him with volume rather than a true difference-maker. Jalen Nailor arrives from the Vikings after catching 29 balls for 444 yards, immediately the second-most proven target in the room, while Noah Brown and Dareke Young add depth pieces from Washington and Seattle. Amari Cooper and Tyler Lockett are both gone, and their exits leave a group that ranked 28th in passing yards per game with more names than answers. Klint Kubiak inherits a receiver corps that is deep in bodies but thin on anyone who has proven he can be a true first read. Jack Bech and Dont'e Thornton Jr. both return after modest rookie-year workloads, and how far they grow will matter more for 2026 than any of the new arrivals.

Brock Bowers caught 64 passes for 680 yards and 7 touchdowns despite playing in just 12 games, and he remains the one proven weapon in an offense that scored 14.2 points per game. Michael Mayer's 35 catches give Klint Kubiak a real second option, someone capable of working the middle while Bowers draws the coverage. The addition of Connor Heyward, who rushed for 43 yards and 2 touchdowns with the Steelers, adds a blocking and short-yardage piece rather than a receiving threat. Chris Myarick arrives with no 2025 line to speak of, so his role in Las Vegas is undefined for now. This group's ceiling was never the problem last season; it was everything else on offense that kept Bowers from turning targets into points.

Sixty-four sacks allowed and 77 rushing yards a game tell the real story of what Klint Kubiak inherited up front. That kind of pressure and that little push cost jobs, and 10 linemen are gone as a result. Tyler Linderbaum arrives from Baltimore as the new center and instantly becomes the anchor of the group, backed by Spencer Burford from San Francisco and rookie Trey Zuhn III added in the third round. Kolton Miller and Jackson Powers-Johnson remain, but with no depth chart to lean on, nobody can say who else survives from a line that finished 30th in yards per play. This is a rebuild built around one blue-chip addition, not a returning strength.

Maxx Crosby remains the engine here, coming off 10 sacks and 28 tackles for loss, and the Raiders paid him accordingly as the highest earner in this room. But the sacks total around him was thin, and losing Tyree Wilson's 4 sacks and 8 tackles for loss off the edge stings a defense that ranked 18th in sacks. Kwity Paye arrives from the Colts to help replace that production, coming off 4 sacks and 6 tackles for loss in Indianapolis, while Jonah Laulu quietly matched Wilson's sack number and Malcolm Koonce adds another interior-to-edge option. Rookies Keyron Crawford and Brandon Cleveland give Klint Kubiak developmental depth up front, but the immediate math still runs through Crosby and Paye getting home more often than this group did last year.

Quay Walker arrives from Green Bay as the new signal-caller of this group, and his 124 tackles and 8 TFL in 2025 dwarf anything this room produced a year ago. He walks into a defense that allowed 25.4 points per game, 25th in the league, with Devin White and Elandon Roberts both gone. Nakobe Dean joins from Philadelphia to pair with him, giving Las Vegas two former first-round linebackers who combined for 7 TFL and 4 sacks even in a limited nine-game 2025 for Dean. Tommy Eichenberg returns after logging 36 tackles across 14 games and should hold a starting job alongside the newcomers. Nine linebackers left this offseason, but the two additions at the top of the depth chart carry more recent production than the whole departed group combined.

Klint Kubiak inherits a secondary that gave up 201 passing yards per game, 14th in the league, but bled points at 25.4 a night. Jeremy Chinn's 113 tackles and Isaiah Pola-Mao's 91 anchor the back end again, a stable veteran pairing at safety. The corners are where things shift. Eric Stokes, the room's highest-paid player at $11.5M, holds his outside spot, but the club used two of four rookie picks on Arizona products, drafting safety Dalton Johnson and cornerback Treydan Stukes to pair with fourth-rounder Jermod McCoy out of Tennessee. Add Taron Johnson, who racked up 57 tackles in Buffalo last season, and the slot gets sturdier even as eight defensive backs, including Kyu Blu Kelly's 3 interceptions, walked out the door.

Matt Gay replaces Daniel Carlson at kicker, arriving off a 17 of 23 showing on field goals with the 49ers in 2025. Carlson had been steadier at 22 of 27, so Gay's job is to prove that dip was circumstance and not decline. AJ Cole is back to handle punting, coming off a 71-punt season with a 40.8 yard net average, and he's the highest-paid player in this room at $4.5M. Long snapping turns over too, with Alex Ward in from the Rams to replace Jacob Bobenmoyer and Luke Elkin. Klint Kubiak inherits a group that finished 1-5 in AFC West play a season ago, and its margins in these games matter more than most staffs will admit.

Cousins Takes Over a New Cast

The Raiders didn't just add pieces this offseason, they gutted the linebacker room. Devin White and Elandon Roberts, who combined for real production a year ago, are both gone, replaced by Quay Walker and Nakobe Dean off Green Bay and Philadelphia. Kirk Cousins is projected to run the offense after throwing for 1,721 yards and 10 touchdowns in Atlanta, and he inherits help at every skill spot, from Jalen Nailor at receiver to Connor Heyward at tight end. A 3-14 season understated this roster's actual quality, and pairing that buy-low case with a churn this significant, 32 arrivals and a division-topping 10-pick draft class led by Fernando Mendoza, points toward a floor that should rise fast under Klint Kubiak. None of it papers over what the defense lost up front in Tyree Wilson, but Kwity Paye arrives to offset that hole.

Cousins Decides the Ceiling

Kirk Cousins is the swing factor here, full stop. The offense burned 17.3 yards for every point it scored last season, well worse than the league median, which means whoever throws it either fixes that inefficiency or the same yardage keeps producing empty drives. Cousins arrives off a stretch in Atlanta where he threw 10 touchdowns against 5 interceptions in limited action, hardly a resounding case, but he inherits Brock Bowers, Tre Tucker and Ashton Jeanty, weapons good enough to make an average passer look efficient. If Cousins turns that skill talent into scoring drives instead of stalled ones, a 3-14 team gets real dividends fast.

Kubiak's Undersold Roster

Three wins in 17 games told fans nothing close to the truth here. The Raiders needed 17.3 yards for every point they scored, well worse than the 14.3 league median, which means drives stalled short of the end zone far more than the talent should allow. Their season win rate of 17.6% badly lagged the 25.0% that their yardage margin implies, a 7.4-point gap that points toward a jump in 2026. Toss in a -6 turnover margin over the year and a 2-5 mark in one-score games, and the losing threads that sank Klint Kubiak's first roster read as the parts most likely to swing back. Against the spread this team has still covered only 48% overall, so the market has not caught up to the buy-low case yet.