Air horns are being blared, footballs are flying through the air, and coaches are screaming at the top of their lungs. NFL training camp is officially underway for every team in the league, meaning we’re one step closer to the NFL season kicking off.

It’s time to start looking at and previewing teams for the NFL season. Today it’s the Las Vegas Raiders, who had an intriguing offseason to say the least. The team had an abysmal 2025 season, finishing 3-14 and landing the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Las Vegas selected Fernando Mendoza first overall, hoping he can bring some life to an organization that needs it.

Mendoza wasn’t the only big addition the Raiders made this offseason. Today, we’re gonna dive into the other additions and how this roster looks going into training camp for the 2026 NFL Season.

Another Coaching Change

Since 2020, the Raiders have had five different head coaches, including interim head coach Rich Bisaccia, who took over for the back half of the 2021 season. After the 3-14 record last season, Mark Davis knew Pete Carroll wasn’t the coach of the future and fired him. Meaning it was time to start looking for the sixth.

The Raiders hired former Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak. He was fresh off a Super Bowl victory with Seattle and proved he can call a championship-level offense. He helped turn Sam Darnold into an efficient passer, and his zone-running scheme was a major reason Seattle made the Super Bowl in the first place.

It’s been a trend in the league to hire a young offensive mind to take over a team. Think of guys like Matt LaFleur, Ben Johnson, Dave Canales and Joe Brady. Offense is what drives teams nowadays, and ownership groups have started to notice. It all started with Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams, and teams have tried to replicate his success there.

Kubiak’s offense in Seattle ranked 13th in the league last year according to EPA/Play. His system helped Jaxon Smith-Njigba fully break out, winning Offensive Player of the Year. It’s his first head-coaching gig at age 39. He’s had stops in Minnesota, Denver, New Orleans and San Francisco throughout his journey. Now Raider fans hope Las Vegas is his last stop, and he has a quaterback who arrived with him that could make that happen.

New Face Under Center

All attention for the Raiders is primarily directed at Mendoza. Despite being taken with the No. 1 overall pick, the Raiders don’t plan to start him. The plan is to ease him into being an NFL starting quaterback and NFL veteran Kirk Cousins will be taking the reins of the offense early on. It’s a shared vision among Kubiak, general manager John Spytek and minority owner Tom Brady to give Mendoza all the time he needs to transition to the NFL.

While some may not agree with the decision, from the Raiders’ point of view, the league has seen countless quarterbacks be rushed onto the field before they were ready to take a snap. The Raiders want to make sure their heavy investment in Mendoza won’t backfire on them. Cousins is the perfect type of quarterback to help him ease into the NFL and the Kubiak offense.

Cousins and Kubiak worked together in Minnesota from 2019-2021. The one season Kubiak was the team’s offensive coordinator, Cousins had one of his better seasons in the league. In 2021, he threw for 4,221 yards, 33 touchdowns to just seven interceptions. He made the Pro Bowl that season and had the Vikings’ offense in the upper echelon of the NFL, ranking 12th in total yardage. Cousins knows this system, so there’s no better teacher for Mendoza.

Revamped Defense

One of the bigger headlines this offseason was the Raiders trading Maxx Crosby to the Baltimore Ravens for two first-round picks. The Ravens brought Crosby in for a physical, and he failed it, prompting them to call off the deal. No draft capital for Las Vegas and no star edge rusher for Baltimore. Both sides seem fine with how everything played out. Ravens signed Trey Hendrickson and drafted Missouri edge Zion Young; Raiders get back a top-five edge rusher in the NFL.

Amidst all the talk of Crosby leaving the team, the Raiders needed to hire a new defensive coordinator. Patrick Graham left the team for Pittsburgh this offseason, so a new name had to step up. Kubiak and the team settled on Rob Leonard to take over the defense. Leonard has been with Vegas since 2023 and has been coaching in the NFL since 2013. It’s his first stint as a defensive coordinator, so one huge question for this Raiders team is how these coaches will perform in their first stint in that role.

Leonard’s defense will have a ton of versatility, with players who can line up anywhere, and an aggressive playstyle that Leonard picked up throughout his journey. He’s spent three seasons under Steve Spagnuolo in New York, and we all know the type of playcaller Spagnuolo is on the defensive side of the ball. The team will also shift their entire front from a 4-3 to a 3-4 (three defensive linemen and four linebackers).

It’s clear that’s the plan with the type of players the Raiders added in the offseason. Kwity Paye, Quay Walker and Keyron Crawford can all line up on the edge and rush the passer off the edge. The team still has players like Malcolm Koonce who can play that role opposite Crosby.

For versatility, the Raiders attacked that heavily in the draft. Taking Arizona teammates in Dalton Johnson and Treydan Stukes, both played multiple roles in the Wildcat defense, and both can line up virtually anywhere. Add Isaiah Pola-Mao and Jeremy Chinn, and Leonard has plenty of versatile defensive backs to work with.

The team lacks a true nose tackle to head this 3-4 look, but has options. They could field Adam Butler (who’s been with the team the past couple of seasons and the likely starter), or look at other younger options like JJ Pegues or Brandon Cleveland.

Young Offensive Weapons

One of the biggest criticisms of the Raiders in 2025 was the offensive line. It’s funny researching these stats, because they don’t even seem real at times. The Raiders gave up a league-most 64 sacks and had 0.71 rushing yards before contact last season, which ranked 31st. If Ashton Jeanty wasn’t making magic happen with his feet, he was getting tackled in the backfield for a loss.

To help address that issue, the Raiders signed former Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum to a three-year, $81 million contract, making him the highest-paid interior offensive lineman in NFL history. The team selected Trey Zuhn III in the third round of the 2026 draft to further boost the interior.

The young talent of Jeanty and All-Pro tight end Brock Bowers are the main driving factors of this Raiders offense. The receiver room lacks high-end talent, so production will have to come from either of these two. Bowers battled injuries last season but returns this season fully healthy. Both have shown what they can do at the NFL level, and with Kubiak calling the plays, there is real excitement that they could have career years in Vegas.

Looking at the previously mentioned receiving room, the top three options are Jack Bech, Tre Tucker and Jalen Nailor. All capable receivers in the NFL, but none have been asked to be the No. 1 option in their careers. That changes with the Raiders this season; someone is going to have to step up and show they’re capable of getting consistent targets throughout the season.

Season Outlook

According to ESPN, the Raiders have the seventh-hardest schedule in the league. The ranking is calculated based on opponents’ win percentages from the 2025 season. Just looking at the schedule, the Raiders going into the season having to play the NFC West and AFC East is challenging. Going against teams like Seattle, Los Angeles, Buffalo, and New England is tough for a team that’s clearly in rebuilding mode.

That being said, that’s the reason the team brought in a guy like Cousins, who has seen this type of competition before. The Raiders have a solid offensive foundation with the players already mentioned. Yes, the receivers are a question mark, but Kubiak has proven he can call a quality game plan focused on running the ball. The next big question is how this secondary will fare against teams like this.

Las Vegas made upgrades to the edge-rushing group and the linebacking core this offseason. They did the same for the secondary, but the majority of it came through the draft. They’ll be hoping young players like Darien Proter, Jermod McCoy and Hezekiah Masses can come into their own and step up to the plate against some of the top teams in the NFL.

With all that being said, Cousins gives this team a solid floor of being a middle-of-the-pack team. We saw that he can clearly still play, as he looked confident with Atlanta in the back half of 2025. The Raiders will be competitive in games and have the high-end talent to sneak a couple of wins against a good team here or there. The glaring needs are just too blatant to ignore; Las Vegas likely wins around six to nine games this season, showing promise, but not enough for a playoff berth.

Playoffs or not, the most important thing on Raiders fans’ minds is how Mendoza will look. If he looks like the next franchise quarterback, this season is a success. If he looks shaky and struggles, it’ll be a long offseason of worry for Vegas fans next spring.