Drew Lock’s first real test as Seattle’s starter comes with a wrinkle the Raiders don’t usually get: the guy helping run their defense spent last season coaching him.
That’s the setup for Sunday at Allegiant Stadium, where Lock will start because Seattle already said Sam Darnold won’t play. On the other sideline will be Raiders offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko, who was Lock’s quarterbacks coach in 2024.
Lock didn’t exactly hide the fit when Seattle brought him back in April of 2025.
“I’m familiar with what Klint does, and the type of stuff that he runs. It’s a familiar style that I feel like I’ve played good football in,” Lock said at the time.
That familiarity matters because Janocko was in the room with him. He had already worked with Klint Kubiak in Minnesota and New Orleans before Seattle hired him as quarterbacks coach in February 2025.
Now he’s in Las Vegas, where he has the offensive coordinator title while Kubiak still calls the plays. The important part for Sunday is simpler than the title: Janocko knows Lock’s habits from up close.
And there are habits to know.
Lock has been efficient in this offense this season, even with a small sample. He’s 54-of-76 for 597 yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions and a 116.0 rating in three games. The volume is light, but the tendencies are already clear.
The ball is coming out quickly. Lock is averaging 2.64 seconds to throw this season, compared with Darnold’s 2.98.
That ranks as the third-fastest time to throw among quarterbacks tracked by Next Gen Stats this season. In Week 9, Lock got it out in 2.41 seconds, the quickest of his career, and on throws released in under 2.5 seconds he went 13-of-18 for 110 yards and a touchdown.
The passing game has also stayed short. By count, 38 of Lock’s 76 attempts have traveled six yards or fewer in the air, and 16 of those never crossed the line of scrimmage.
Only eight have gone 16 yards or more downfield. His average intended air yards are 6.84 for the season and 5.38 in Week 9.
A lot of that work has gone to Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Lock has targeted him 31 times, which is 41% of his attempts, and four of Lock’s five touchdown passes have gone to him.
Those throws to Smith-Njigba have averaged 8.0 yards in the air. Even in Week 9, when Smith-Njigba finished with 51 yards, Lock still looked his way 10 times.
That’s the part Janocko should know best. Get the ball out.
Stay on schedule. Lean on the first read.
The difference from Darnold is in the details: faster, shorter, and with more of the offense flowing through Smith-Njigba.
There’s also a fair counterpoint here. Seattle’s offense isn’t exactly a mystery to the Raiders, either.
Mike Macdonald hired Kubiak, and his defense has spent 2025 working against this system. Macdonald said this week that Sunday “feels like the first divisional game of the season,” and that “we know each other, but we also know that we are different.”
Seattle’s offensive coordinator is Brian Fleury, who came over from the 49ers. When he got the job in February, Fleury said the goal was “to maintain as much of that as possible” from what Kubiak had installed, while also having room to “supplement” it.
“It looks very similar to the one that just won the Super Bowl,” he said. Darnold later described it as “not much of a transition” and “a lot of the same stuff,” with “a couple different wrinkles.”
So this isn’t a pure copy-and-paste job, and the Raiders have already seen plenty of Kubiak’s offense in practice. Still, the core of what Lock is doing is the same system Janocko coached him in a year ago.
That gives Las Vegas a real edge to work with, even if it’s a narrow one. Janocko can’t make the tackles or rush the passer, but he can help Rob Leonard’s defense understand how quickly Lock wants the ball out, how often the throws stay under five yards on early downs, and how heavily Smith-Njigba is being featured.
Sunday won’t answer everything. Seventy-six attempts is still a small sample, and it won’t erase missed tackles or clean up every problem. But it is a rare chance for a defense to line up against a quarterback its own coach spent a full season teaching.
That should mean something.
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Raiders Trade For Kirk Cousins Looks Different After Vikings Decision
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For the Raiders, the trade was never just about moving on from a veteran quarterback, it was about betting on the value of the return and the direction of the roster. Cousins had started nine games in Las Vegas, completing 64.1 percent of his passes with 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions, so Minnesotas willingness to put him back in the lineup only sharpens the question of what the Raiders gave up and what they still need to answer at the position. [Read more 🡒]