The Raiders’ final roster cuts didn’t produce a lot of drama, and that was the point.
After a busy summer of reshaping the roster, Las Vegas trimmed down to 53 players ahead of Sunday’s deadline, then used Monday to lock in the practice squad. For a team in the early stages of a rebuild under Klint Kubiak, the biggest takeaway wasn’t who got cut so much as how little chaos followed.
That’s because the Raiders filled the entire practice squad with players who had already spent time on the 90-man roster. In other words, the coaching staff didn’t have to go hunting for outside help to patch things together. They already knew what they had.
Among the names added back were cornerback Greedy Vance and linebacker Cameron McGrone. Las Vegas also kept Cian Slone and Jahfari Harvey as defensive end options, while Roman Hemby and Albert Okwuegbunam stayed in the mix too.
None of the players removed from the roster came as a shock on their own. But the fact that the practice squad was stocked entirely from inside the building makes those moves look even more deliberate. This staff spent the summer evaluating, sorting and deciding - and by the end of camp, it had a clear read on the roster.
That kind of clarity matters for a team trying to build something new. Sunday and Monday gave the Raiders their cleanest picture yet of the 2026 version of the team since Kubiak arrived, and now the focus turns fully to Week 1 against the Miami Dolphins in two weeks.
Kubiak said after the final preseason game that the details matter at every level.
“I think just from coaching, you know that any one little mistake on any given play can affect the outcome of a game. The edges are so short and the mistakes get magnified so much. So, if you don't treat the little mistakes in practice and in walkthroughs like it's a live rep in the AFC Championship game, then you're selling the players short,” Kubiak said following the team's final preseason game.
“So, I think that's our coaching staff's mindset is to never walk past a mistake and to be as detailed as we can be, knowing how important it is that we get things fixed. So, that's just our job as coaches to never be lackadaisical, even in a walkthrough."
That approach showed up in the way the Raiders handled their cuts. The staff moved decisively because camp and the preseason gave them the answers they needed. And after years when surprises seemed to show up everywhere, this was one of the rare times when a lack of surprises felt like progress.
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