The Raiders’ 2026 season is going to be shaped less by splashy headlines than by a handful of roster calls that are already starting to matter. Las Vegas has spent the offseason trying to clean up years of bad fits in free agency and the draft, and while the rebuild is still young, the front office has made clear it expects real progress under general manager John Spytek and first-time head coach Klint Kubiak.
The challenge is obvious: this group knows the turnaround won’t happen overnight. But the Raiders have already added pieces that could change the shape of the season in a hurry, and some of them carry far more weight than others.
At quarterback, the move to bring in Cousins stands out as the clearest upgrade. It’s hard to argue Las Vegas has been worse at the position over the last three seasons, and Cousins already appears to be a better fit in Kubiak’s system than the Raiders have found in recent years.
He gives them a real signal-caller who can help them win games now, while also easing Fernando Mendoza’s path as the No. 1 overall pick develops at a more manageable pace. That kind of move doesn’t just affect this season; it can echo beyond the moment Cousins and the team eventually split.
On the defensive side, Stukes looks like the kind of addition that can quietly become indispensable. He’s already earned a meaningful role, and that role could expand as he gets more comfortable at the pro level. There’s a real chance his impact shows up right away, even as soon as Week 1, and Las Vegas may end up relying on him as one of the most important pieces of a defense still being built.
Kubiak’s arrival also changes the way the Raiders are thinking about the run game, and that matters because one of the organization’s biggest missteps over the last three seasons was moving away from fullbacks. Las Vegas stripped out the position to fit incoming offensive schemes, but those schemes - and the coaches running them - didn’t deliver.
The result was ugly: an offense without an extra blocker and, at the same time, an offensive line that was arguably the worst in the league. The ground game paid the price.
That’s expected to change under Kubiak.
The decision to draft Washington in the fourth round of this year’s draft is already paying off, too. Las Vegas took Ashton Jeanty with the No. 6 overall pick last year, then added Washington despite having more obvious needs elsewhere.
Washington was set for a sizable role in Kubiak’s offense anyway, but Jeanty’s injury has pushed him into the starting job much sooner than anyone planned. Now he’ll be asked to handle a much bigger share of the backfield load.
Spytek made it clear why the Raiders were so eager to make that pick. “I'll give Coach [Klink] Kubiak a lot of credit for this one. He stood on a table for that kid at the start of day three, and this is the perfect scheme fit and we can make this player into a good player, he has what we're looking for,” Spytek said.
“And so, it's hard for any rookie to really carve out meaningful minutes and be as productive as you want them to be. And Mike certainly had a great preseason, nobody's taken that away from him, but it gets very real, very fast here now. But I think we're all excited about the track that Mike is on, and I think we have an expectation that he's going to help us win football games this year."
Washington still has plenty to prove, but the Raiders already have a strong sense that his presence will matter. Between the quarterback upgrade, the growing role for Stukes, the return to a fullback-heavy approach, and Washington being thrust into a larger role, these are the kinds of roster decisions that could define what 2026 looks like in Las Vegas.
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Raiders QB Plan Already Comes With One Big Problem
The Raiders have already settled on their quarterback plan for 2026, putting Kirk Cousins at the top of the depth chart over rookie Fernando Mendoza and Aidan OConnell. Klint Kubiaks decision leans heavily on Cousins experience and leadership, a sensible enough place to start for a team trying to steady itself and avoid another season of uncertainty under center.
But the choice still comes with an obvious catch for Las Vegas, because the biggest question around the offense may not be who is taking the snaps so much as who is keeping the pocket intact. If the offensive line continues to be an issue, the case for Mendoza as the longer-term answer only gets stronger, and the Raiders could find themselves weighing present-day stability against a future built on better protection. [Read more 🡒]
Raiders Offense Suddenly Has One Touches Question Fans Can't Ignore
The Raiders head into 2026 with an offense that looks very different from the one fans have been sorting through for the past few seasons, and the roster changes give this group a very different kind of ceiling. Kirk Cousins brings the passing-game structure, Brock Bowers remains the kind of weapon defenses have to account for on every snap, and Ashton Jeanty adds a layer of backfield power that can shape how the whole unit is used. Add in young pass-catchers like Tre Tucker and Malik Benson, plus Mike Washington Jr. as another name to watch in the mix, and there are enough moving parts here to make the offense feel loaded with possibilities.
What makes it interesting is how tightly all of those roles may connect once the season starts. If Cousins is throwing at a steady clip, Bowers and the receivers can feed off that volume, while Jeantys workload could determine how balanced or pass-heavy the offense becomes from week to week. For bettors looking at individual markets, that creates a familiar Raiders question with a new cast: which player is actually set up to get the touches that matter most, and which one is going to be left waiting for opportunity? [Read more 🡒]
Raiders Offensive Staff Overhaul Says Everything About Last Seasons Problems
The Raiders changes on offense say plenty about how the organization felt about last seasons problems, especially up front. Las Vegas struggled with its offensive line in 2025, and internal sources described the coaching there as among the worst they had seen, a stinging assessment that helps explain why the team moved quickly to reset that side of the ball.
Rick Dennison arrives as the new offensive line coach for 2026, with the expectation that he can bring cleaner fundamentals and better technique to a unit that badly needed both. The overhaul did not stop there, either, as the Raiders also upgraded at quarterbacks coach by hiring Mike Sullivan, whose long NFL background and prior working relationship with offensive coordinator Kubiak should give the staff more continuity as it tries to stabilize the offense. [Read more 🡒]