The Las Vegas Raiders will officially start Kirk Cousins at quarterback in Week 1, which means top draft pick Fernando Mendoza will start his NFL career on the bench. It's probably for the best, as so many quarterbacks have benefitted historically from an understudy period before taking on the QB1 mantle. The NFL requires a steep adjustment period at every position, but especially at quarterback. Mendoza can work diligently in the background and learn a lot from Cousins, whose experience is vast.
Las Vegas made several upgrades to their roster this offseason, beefing up a needy offensive line and adding on the margins defensively. Perhaps their best move was not trading superstar edge rusher Maxx Crosby after a proposed deal with Baltimore collapsed due to medical concerns. With a new head coach in Klint Kubiak, coming off of a Super Bowl run in Seattle as the O.C., the Raiders hope to take a step in the right direction this season. Cousins, for all his warts, led the Falcons to five wins in eight starts last season. There's something left in the tank. These Raiders in particular will benefit from the 38-year-old's guidance on the field.
TE Brock Bowers
Brock Bowers put up 1,194 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie, quickly establishing himself as one of the best tight ends in football. His follow-up campaign was a slightly letdown, with 680 yards and seven touchdowns in 12 games, as injuries dragged him down. Still, we know Bowers is capable of extraordinary heights. He figures to lead the Raiders in receptions and receiving yards next season, given the dire state of their wideout room.
While Mendoza has star upside, he looked shaky at best in limited preseason exposure. So reliant on elite pass protection and supernova receivers, as so many great college quarterbacks are, Mendoza was flustered by his first taste of the NFL pressure cooker. Cousins has been around the block before. It doesn't hurt that he established such a fruitful connection with Kyle Pitts Sr. in Atlanta; Cousins is going to spam play-action and operate almost exclusively in the pocket, hoping to pepper passes over the middle of the field. Bowers is his biggest, most physical target, with a real knack for bulldozing his way to yards after the catch.
Cousins' immobility is a problem and he can struggle to deliver the football cleanly when he's not properly insulated, but the veteran has made a career out of extreme accuracy and razor-sharp processing. If the Raiders' rebuilt O-line lives up to expectations, Cousins should feel the necessary freedom to consistently deliver the football to Bowers on-point and in-stride. Expect a fruitful partnership.
WR Jack Bech
Jack Bech was the Raiders' 2025 second-round pick. The LSU product did not show much as a rookie, but it's hard to blame him when Geno Smith was leading the most inefficient offense in the NFL. Cousins seemed to put his post-injury turnover problems in the rearview mirror last season. More like his old self, Cousins was comfortable standing in the pocket and delivering darts under pressure.
While he's not going to churn out the same long-range throws he did in his prime, Cousins is still geared toward receivers like Bech. The 23-year-old is the most physical wideout on the Raiders' payroll, capable of battling for an edge on the perimeter or high-pointing catches in traffic. Much like Drake London, Bech does not explode off the line of scrimmage. It can take a second for him to get open. That should fly with Cousins on the controls; he is more patient and more precise than Mendoza at this stage.
This is a golden opportunity — and perhaps the last opportunity — for Bech to stake his claim as a go-to receiver for the Raiders. Las Vegas will eventually sign or draft someone over him if the production does not improve. Rather than falling on the sword as Mendoza goes through early-season trial and error, Bech will get a chance to benefit from Cousins' high passing volume and trademark accuracy.
RB Ashton Jeanty
Speaking of second-year players who need to put their best foot forward in 2026, Ashton Jeanty is coming off of an immensely disappointing rookie campaign. He put up a respectable 1,321 yards from scrimmage with 10 total touchdowns, but Jeanty averaged an inefficient 3.7 yards per carry and was slow to pick up momentum behind the Raiders' shoddy offensive line.
He should find a lot more greenspace in front of him this season. Plus, Cousins is going to settle the offense compared the erraticism of the Geno Smith experience. Oh, and Kenneth Walker was a Super Bowl MVP under Klint Kubiak's guidance. The upgrade in playbook certainly cannot hurt.
If the Raiders can establish a more viable passing attack with Cousins, that alone will free up Jeanty to feast between the tackles on early downs. Moreover, Jeanty projects as one of the best pass-catching running backs in the NFL. At least, he did coming out of Boise State, where the Broncos used Jeanty like a Swiss Army Knife, lining him up all over the formation and letting him attack a variety of favorable matchups.
Cousins will come to depend on Jeanty as a safety valve, a pressure outlet, when his priority targets falter. If Jeanty experiences the year-two breakout fantasy owners everywhere are hoping for, don't be shocked if Cousins receives a lot of the credit.
HC Klint Kubiak
Klint Kubiak got a well-earned promotion to Raiders head coach after helping Seattle to a Super Bowl in his first (and only) season as offensive playcaller. Kubiak shares football DNA with Kyle Shanahan and that fruitful 49ers coaching tree. It does not take a phD to understand why Cousins was his quarterback of choice. Cousins has been the standard-bearer for quarterbacks in the Shanahan/O'Connell/Kubiak style of offense for a decade-plus.
It's hard not to trust Kubiak's taste in QBs after the work he did with Sam Darnold in Seattle last season. Even during his breakout campaign in Minnesota the year prior, not a soul viewed Darnold as a championship-caliber quarterback. Kubiak was able to check Darnold's worst instincts and speed up his processing. Cousins is more seasoned than Darnold, with less zip on his throws nowadays. But he knows the Kubiak playbook front-to-back; Cousins and Kubiak had overlapping tenures in Minnesota from 2019-21, when Kubiak served as QBs coach and eventually offensive coordinator.
That familarity breeds confidence and comfort for the whole team. The Raiders axed Pete Carroll after a year, so this is a team with high expectations. Kubiak will be under the microscope from the jump. Cousins gives him the best chance to realize Vegas' offensive potential from the jump. Meanwhile, Mendoza can get a year of obvervational study in from the sidelines, hoping to replicate and improve upon Cousins' success in 2027 — assuming all goes to plan.
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