Klint Kubiak Has the Raiders 3-0 for the First Time Since 2021 — Kansas City Will Decide If It's Real

The Las Vegas Raiders are 3-0, and the way they got there is the story of the week.

Sunday in New Orleans, they trailed 27-22 entering the fourth quarter, had already opened the second half with a three-and-out and fumbled a kickoff return, and looked like a team about to hand back a game it had controlled. Instead they ripped off 21 unanswered points, forced four takeaways in the final period, and left the Superdome with a 35-27 win. It's the Raiders' best start since 2021, and just the second time since 2002 they've opened 3-0.

That's the headline, but the substance is in the margins.

Cousins is the steady hand this team has lacked

Kirk Cousins has thrown three touchdown passes in each of the first three games — a feat only a handful of quarterbacks have managed in their first three starts with a franchise. Through three weeks he's 62-of-92 (67.4%) for 661 yards, nine touchdowns, three interceptions, and a 107.2 passer rating. He's been sacked only five times, and he's doing it at moderate volume: the Raiders are averaging 320.3 yards per game while scoring 29.3 points, meaning they're converting efficiently rather than piling up empty yardage.

Tre Tucker has been the big-play outlet, Brock Bowers returned against the Saints and immediately became the underneath chain-mover, and the offense has taken on the shape of a first-year head coach's system rather than a veteran quarterback freelancing.

The defense is the actual engine

The Raiders are allowing 18.0 points per game, and the pattern across all three wins is the same: they don't smother opponents, they pressure them into mistakes and then cash in. Sunday's fourth quarter was the purest version of it — four takeaways in fifteen minutes turned a five-point deficit into an eight-point win.

Klint Kubiak, hired in February after one season of Pete Carroll in Las Vegas, is already the early favorite for Coach of the Year, largely because he's a first-time head coach whose team has won two straight games it would have lost a year ago. The culture-shift stories out of training camp — the "no nonsense," machine-like approach — are now backed by tape.

But the caveats are real

The three teams the Raiders have beaten are a combined 1-8. Miami is 0-3, the Chargers are 0-3, and New Orleans sits at 1-2. Las Vegas has actually been outgained over the stretch, and the running game is a genuine problem: Ashton Jeanty has 206 yards on 63 carries — 3.3 yards per attempt — with no rushing touchdowns.

So the 3-0 is partly opportunistic and partly untested. Which is exactly why Week 4 matters so much.

Both teams are 3-0, and only one can stay perfect

Sunday at Allegiant Stadium, the Kansas City Chiefs come to town at 3-0. It's the first time in franchise history that these two have opened a season 3-0 in the same year, and sole possession of the AFC West is on the line. Kansas City opened as a 4.5-point road favorite, a number that has held steady, while the total has climbed from 45.5 to 47.5 — the market's conviction sits with the Chiefs, but the movement on the total suggests expectations of a higher-scoring game than the opener implied.

The matchup that matters most: Kansas City is generating only 1.0 sack per game, near the bottom of the league, while Cousins has been kept clean at 1.7 sacks allowed per contest. If he has time Sunday, the Raiders' efficiency model gets its best chance yet to prove it travels against a real defense — because the Chiefs allow just 16.7 points per game.

The Raiders don't need a perfect season. They need to show that the fourth quarter in New Orleans wasn't an outlier. Sunday is the first chance to prove it.