The Raiders are about to open the 2026 regular season in eight days, and the first test comes at home against the Miami Dolphins at Allegiant Stadium. But if you want to understand this team, the opener is only part of the picture.
This season is built around a rebuild, and that means the spotlight won’t just land on the scoreboard. It’s going to fall on the young players, the rookie coaches, and the way the Raiders handle growth in real time.
Klint Kubiak is a first-time rookie coach, and the roster is full of rookies and young pieces. That comes with mistakes.
It also comes with a chance to see who develops fastest.
Tre Tucker’s rookie year offered a perfect example. He had trouble with dropped balls, and that was treated as part of the learning curve.
The same kind of patience won’t be extended to him in 2026 the way it will be for someone like Malik Benson, nor should it be. The point is to judge each player based on where he is in his career, while understanding that a rebuilding season is different from one where the playoffs are the expectation.
That perspective matters because the Raiders are going to show a lot this year from defensive coordinator Rob Leonard and Kubiak on offense that fans haven’t seen before. The same goes for Joe DeCamillis on special teams. If you’re watching closely, the season becomes less about staring at the ball and more about tracking the details: the offensive line’s movement, where defenders are coming from after the snap, and how they shift once the play starts to unfold.
That’s where the game starts to open up. The strategy becomes visible. The little things begin to tell the bigger story.
Special teams, in particular, is no place to tune out. The old football saying goes that if fans know the kicker, punter, or long snapper, they’re either terrible or elite.
Nobody knows the mediocre ones. For the Raiders, AJ Cole stands out as the best punter in the entire NFL, while LS Alex Ward and K Matt Gay both had terrific training camps.
DeCamillis has overhauled the unit and brought an attacking approach to the Silver and Black.
That means kickoff and punt time are no longer just a chance to grab a snack. They’re a chance to watch how the Raiders operate, how they use lanes, and which young players might be the next names to matter.
Great organizations, the source of the piece argues, are obsessed with special teams. Kubiak’s Raiders have taken that seriously, and they’ve spent more practice time on special teams than any team the writer has seen in 27 years.
The larger philosophy behind all of it comes back to the Raiders’ old standard. Al Davis built this franchise on a commitment to excellence, but the article says that clarity has faded over the last 20-plus years. John Spytek and Kubiak are being presented as the people restoring it, not by chasing quick fixes, but by thinking long term.
That’s why the Raiders won’t rush into a trade for a true WR1 if it costs them down the road. The article makes clear that this front office isn’t interested in a short burst of success that creates bigger problems later. The vision is to win the right way, with “Just Win, Baby” and “Commitment to Excellence” working together instead of pulling apart.
Seen through that lens, the 2026 season isn’t just about whether the Raiders can stack wins right away. It’s about whether the young mistakes are part of real development, whether the staff is building something durable, and whether the team is finding its identity again. The promise, as framed here, is simple: the Raiders are trying to become what they used to be, while becoming something new at the same time.
In Other News...
Raiders Suddenly Face A Real Maxx Crosby Problem They Cant Ignore
The Cowboys have already spent the early part of the season reshaping their roster financially, restructuring three veteran contracts to create more than $33 million in cap space. That kind of move inevitably invites a bigger question, and in this case it has quickly centered on Maxx Crosby, the Raiders star edge rusher, with speculation building that Dallas could be positioning itself for a run at him before the Week 10 deadline.
For the Raiders, the chatter is impossible to ignore because it comes on top of prior trade discussions between the two teams and a very public dismissal of the rumors from owner Mark Davis. Crosby has been one of the defining players on the roster, which is exactly why any renewed push from Dallas would land with real force in Las Vegas, even if no deal has been finalized and nothing suggests the talks are close to reaching that point. [Read more 🡒]
Raiders Still Paying For Past Roster Mistakes In One Painful Way
The Raiders have started to come out from under a wave of dead money tied to some of their more recognizable recent departures, clearing off cap hits from former players such as Davante Adams, Jimmy Garoppolo, Gardner Minshew and Andre James as they look toward the 2026 NFL season. For a team that has spent plenty of time trying to reset its roster, that is a welcome bit of financial breathing room and a sign that some of the most expensive mistakes of the recent past are finally fading.
Even so, the cap picture is still far from clean. Las Vegas remains on the hook for dead cap obligations involving Tyree Wilson, Jakobi Meyers, Geno Smith and Christian Wilkins, a reminder that the roster churn has not always come with easy exits. Those lingering charges are the kind of back-end burden that can quietly shape how aggressive the Raiders can be in the months ahead, even as the organization keeps trying to build around a more stable core. [Read more 🡒]
Raiders Rookie Class Could Force Bigger Roles Faster Than Expected
The Raiders went into the offseason expecting their 2026 draft class to be about long-term development, but the preseason has made that plan look a little more complicated. Several rookies have flashed enough to put themselves in the conversation for real playing time, and Las Vegas has needs that could push younger players onto the field sooner than originally projected.
Fernando Mendoza, Treydan Stukes, Keyron Crawford, Trey Zuhn III, Jermod McCoy and Mike Washington Jr. all entered camp with different paths ahead of them, but the common thread is opportunity. Some are now positioned for starting jobs or meaningful snaps, while others may end up with smaller roles or have their seasons interrupted by injury, leaving the Raiders to sort out just how quickly this class can change the depth chart. [Read more 🡒]