The Raiders walked into Week 9 already carrying the same problem that has followed them all season: slow starts. Against a 49ers team coming off its bye and playing at home, Las Vegas never really shook that habit.
San Francisco opened with a 12-play, 69-yard march, and the Raiders’ offense answered with a three-play, seven-yard series that burned just one minute off the clock before a punt. By then, the 49ers were on their way to a 14-0 lead, and Las Vegas spent the rest of the afternoon chasing the game.
What made it feel familiar was how closely it mirrored what happened against the Jets a week earlier. The Raiders got out of that game with a win, but the warning signs were already there.
Geno Smith and New York had success against the Las Vegas defense, and San Francisco came in with a nearly identical approach - only sharper, faster, and more dangerous. The 49ers attacked the Raiders on the ground and through the air, and the early damage on the run game put even more pressure on a secondary that has been vulnerable all year.
That run defense was the biggest early tell. The Jets ran for 140 yards in the first half last week, and the 49ers nearly hit 100 yards on the ground in the first quarter alone.
When a defense can’t control the line of scrimmage, everything behind it gets exposed. For Las Vegas, that has been a recurring issue, and the last two weeks have made it impossible to ignore.
Still, this isn’t the same Raiders team that stumbled through a 3-14 season under Pete Carroll. That matters.
The roster has been overhauled, and the front office was aggressive all offseason in trying to patch holes across the board. Even with that work, the team was always going to need more than one offseason to get right.
The Week 9 loss was another reminder that the Raiders are better than they were last year, even if the results still come with plenty of rough edges.
At 4-5, Las Vegas is no longer staring at the league’s worst record, but it’s also not in a comfortable spot. The Raiders are closer to the two-win Jets, the New Orleans Saints, the winless Los Angeles Chargers, and the one-win Miami Dolphins than they are to looking like a finished product. That’s progress, even if it doesn’t always feel like it in the moment.
The bigger picture is what comes next. The Raiders were not supposed to be in playoff contention until they opened 3-0, and even now they’re still hanging around the race.
But with games against the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos ahead, the margin for error is thinning fast. The decisions that follow will matter, not just for the rest of this season but for what comes after it.
This is what the early stages of a rebuild look like: uneven, frustrating, and full of calculated risks. The Raiders have five losses because the front office had to choose where to invest and where to wait. That doesn’t make every defeat easy to watch, but it does explain why the season has unfolded the way it has.
The key now is not to let a possible playoff chase push the organization into the wrong choices. Development on game day is more valuable than development in practice, and as the losses mount, the Raiders have to keep the future in view.
In Other News...
Raiders Face A Trade Deadline Choice That Could Define This Run
The Raiders have spent the first part of the season making a better case for themselves than almost anyone expected, and that has turned the next few weeks into a real test of how serious they are about staying in the playoff picture. With the November 10 trade deadline approaching, the front office has a chance to answer a simple question: is this a team content to ride the momentum, or one willing to push chips in while the window is open?
The roster has clear pressure points, even if the record has softened some of the early skepticism. Help at wide receiver would make life easier on Ashton Jeanty and give the offense more balance, while the defensive front could use another body to complement Maxx Crosby and keep the pass rush from wearing down. Several names have surfaced as possible fits, and the Raiders now have to decide whether to stand pat or make the kind of move that can shape the rest of this run. [Read more 🡒]
Broncos Face Early Roster Pressure Around J.K. Dobbins And Secondary
Maxx Crosby has been one of the more steady voices around the Raiders as camp chatter starts to settle into real roster questions, and he sounded encouraged by where the team is headed. The veteran edge rusher said he likes the locker room and trusts the new leadership, while also pointing to both Klint Kubiak and first-time defensive coordinator Rob Leonard as reasons for his optimism about the direction of the group.
On offense, the conversation around Ashton Jeanty has already taken on a familiar training-camp split: what he has done as a receiver versus what he has shown as a runner. Offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko said Jeantys work in the passing game has been stronger than his production on the ground, but the team is treating the rushing issues as something bigger than one back, a sign that the Raiders are still sorting out how the whole offense wants to function. [Read more 🡒]
Raiders May Have Found A First Round Answer To Their Guard Problem
The Raiders have spent enough time searching for stability inside that any promising young lineman is worth a long look, and Minnesota guard Greg Johnson is starting to look like the kind of first-round option that could fit the bill. He brings the size teams want up front, and his tape points to a blocker who can help in both phases, giving Las Vegas a potential answer to a spot that has been a recurring problem.
What makes Johnson especially intriguing is how much more than a simple guard prospect he appears to be. His versatility gives him appeal across the offensive line, and his work in pass protection and run blocking suggests a player who could step into a bigger role quickly if he continues on this path toward the 2027 NFL Draft. For a Raiders team trying to build real durability in the trenches, that kind of flexibility is hard to ignore. [Read more 🡒]