Time hasn't made the Las Vegas Raiders' 3-0 start to the 2026 NFL season look more impressive. Not only has Klint Kubiak's team now lost three in a row ahead of a pivotal Week 7, but two of the clubs they beat are still winless, and the other is a mere 2-4. That is not exactly the strongest résumé.
But their losses - two of them, anyway - have been nail-biters, and all three of them have come at the hands of powerhouse AFC programs. Three-point losses to the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills are not preferable, but it's still hard to look at games like that as a step in the wrong direction.
Moral victories don't exist in the NFL, of course; the Raiders are as good as their 3-3 record. They have beaten the bad teams and lost to the good teams, in a sense. However, they are knocking on the door of that next echelon, and anyone giving up on this young program already is acting prematurely.
Don't give up on Klint Kubiak's Las Vegas Raiders team in 2026 just yet
First, let's look back at this solid six-game sample size. Not only did the Silver and Black emerge with victories against the winless Miami Dolphins and Los Angeles Chargers, but they did so in fairly dominant fashion. In both contests, Las Vegas held a two-score edge,
And the Raiders looked just as, if not more, dominant than other programs against the Dolphins and Chargers, excluding the San Francisco 49ers or Chiefs. Their other win was a hard-fought comeback on the road over the New Orleans Saints, who are a deceptively good 2-4 against a tough schedule.
Losing to the Chiefs and Bills by a combined six points and taking them to the wire is a feather in this team's cap as well. And I know that Al Davis said, "Just Win, Baby," and getting close or competing was not, and still is not, the goal, but this team has to effectively walk before it runs. Baby steps.
Babies grow up in the blink of an eye, though. One minute, they're crawling, and the next they're up sprinting around. The same could easily happen for Kubiak's young team and coaching staff, as they will get better with experience. But more importantly, they have the absolute perfect mindset.
Instead of worrying about the big picture, which can be intimidating for an untested group in the building, they are focused on the day-to-day. And they emphasize things like being a good teammate, doing the work and having football matter, not production and results as the bottom line.
Ultimately, though, those are critical and will define this team and the players and coaches who comprise it. But as John Spytek says, you can't begin with the end in mind. Here, we can talk about the future and look ahead, but in Las Vegas, they are laser-focused on the moment at hand.
Not to mention, in addition to having so many new and young pieces playing important roles early on, the Raiders still have the consummate ace in the hole in Fernando Mendoza. This franchise is moving in the right direction already, and the No. 1 pick quarterback hasn't yet meaningfully touched the field.
Is losing three straight games ideal? Certainly not. This Las Vegas team has so much to clean up if it wants to get back in the win column and make a serious push for the playoffs. To be the team that takes down the Goliaths and doesn't just look like a trap game in which their foe narrowly escapes.
Things have taken a 180 from a year ago, though, and progress was all that fans wanted. Having that early taste of success placed unfairly high expectations for where this team truly is, but the fact that they are 3-3 and a few steps ahead in their rebuild is promising. And certainly not a reason to give up.
Raiders' issues will solve themselves, though
Of course, this team is still flawed in many ways, and was from the jump. Rapidly making key corrections or improvements will decide whether or not the Raiders have the chops to be good right now, or if that tasty appetizer came way earlier than the main course, ruining a good 2026 meal.
Kirk Cousins, for as well as he has played, has his limitations. The run game hasn't gotten going due to a combination of factors, too. The wide receiver corps still lacks a true No. 1, despite Tre Tucker's emergence, and the offensive line isn't as improved as initially thought.
Defensively, the pass rush is a mess, and the unit as a whole has taken a dramatic step back from the beginning of the year. The linebacker group and secondary are both talented and have a lot of promise, but it starts up front. And the takeaway fountain has stopped flowing.
These are all legitimate concerns for the Silver and Black, and again, the cavalry isn't coming. Spytek probably isn't planning on going out and adding a ton of high-end, proven talent at the deadline, that is unless Las Vegas strings together a few wins here in this difficult stretch ahead.
So, while there is no reason to give up on this young Raiders team, there is no reason to anoint them either, or to simply write off their shortcomings. The right process seems to be in place, though, for the first time in a long time.
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