Many expected the Las Vegas Raiders to make wide receiver a bigger priority in the 2026 NFL draft, but the Raiders didn’t take one until the sixth round, adding Oregon’s Malik Benson to the roster. That being said, it’s easy to see why Las Vegas was interested in the former Duck because he fits head coach Klint Kubiak’s profile for the position pretty well.
Size-wise, Kubiak has an affinity for receivers who are around six feet tall and 190 pounds, making the 6-foot-0, 189-pound wideout a good match.
The coach also likes pass catchers who can operate out of the slot and out wide, and who have some speed. While Benson only recorded 20.1 percent of his pass snaps on the inside last year, he logged 186 yards on nine catches and 3.51 yards per route run from the slot, according to Pro Football Focus. And he notched a 4.37-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine.
With that in mind, let’s flip on the tape and see what the former track star can bring to the Raiders’ offense.
Likely another reason Kubiak is interested in Benson is that he’s a smart receiver who is good at recognizing when he’s in a soft spot against zone coverage.
Here, he’s running a simple slant route against Cover 3 from USC. Once he sees the linebacker in front of him widen past the hash mark and the inside backer stay in the middle of the field, the wideout knows he’s in a hole in the zone and slows down to avoid running into coverage and maximize the quarterback’s throwing window. Then, he shows off some burst to tack on nearly 20 yards after the catch.
It’s simple, but the combination of football IQ and speed can lead to an explosive play off of a short throw.
Speaking of, this next clip is almost the same as the last one; the route is just further down the field.
Oregon comes out in a three-by-one formation where Benson is the single receiver on the short side of the field and runs a backside dig route, while Washington plays Cover 3 and the free safety cheats toward the trips receivers. The safety’s movement tells the quarterback to get to the backside of his read, where the wideout has done a good job of exposing the holes in the coverage.
Once Benson gets out of his cut, he knows the corner will pass him off and slows down to give the quarterback a couple of windows to throw into: either between the backside curl-to-flat and hook-to-curl defenders, or between the two hook-to-curl defenders. Also, had the safety stayed in the middle of the field, he’d be driving on the dig route. So continuing to run the route at full speed would mean Benson is running himself into coverage in a normal circumstance against this look.
As a result, the quarterback hits the wideout between the two hook-to-curl defenders, and he shows off some strong hands to make the catch on a ball that’s up and away from his body. For the record, he only had one drop at a 2.3 percent rate last season, per PFF.
Finally, that 4.37-speed shows up after the catch, as the speed demon breaks a few angles and high steps out of a tackle attempt to record a 64-yard touchdown that put the Ducks up two possessions in the fourth quarter. While Benson isn’t very shifty to juke defensive backs out, he does have good vision and burst to make plays after the catch and averaged 4.2 YAC per reception in 2025. That’s another receiver trait that Kubiak gravitates toward.
Something that Benson does well as a route runner is using his speed to manipulate defensive backs.
On this rep, he’s running an out route against off coverage from the slot and does a solid job of pushing vertical to get the nickelback to back pedal and create even more space before cutting toward the sideline on the intermediate route.
Now, Benson does drift instead of snapping the route off after the cut, and that’s one area of improvement for him at the next level. As good as his linear speed is, he received a poor Relative Athletic Score for lateral movement and change of direction skills.
However, the sixth-rounder manages to recover here by working back to the football, which creates enough separation to haul in the pass. Also, he shows some impressive field awareness by dropping to a knee to make sure he can secure the catch before going out of bounds.
Building on the section above, this is a great double-move where our subject reverses the script, using the out to set up the vertical route.
This time, Benson is running an out-and-up route against Cover 0. He does a good job of selling the out by getting his shoulders and head pointed toward the sideline, and he even looks back to the quarterback to really make the cornerback think he’s running an out. That gets the corner to stop working for depth and start moving toward the sideline.
Then, the former Duck’s speed comes back into play, as he kicks it into second gear while turning upfield to create separation and win deep. The quarterback gives Benson a back-shoulder throw instead of putting the pass in front of him, and the wideout makes a nice adjustment by high-pointing the ball and turning his back to the defender so the defender can’t make a play at the catch point.
While the 6-foot, sub-200-pound receiver isn’t someone who should be getting many 50/50 balls, he did come down with six of ten contested catches for Oregon last year, per PFF.
Finally, blocking is considered an afterthought for wide receivers, but it’s a requirement in Kubiak’s offense. With his lack of size, Benson isn’t a force and will get beaten by bigger defenders occassionally, but he is a willing blocker and not afraid to get his hands dirty. It might seem trivial, but effort is one of the biggest factors when it comes to good blocking receivers.
Here, we’ll take a look at a couple of quality blocks from Benson.
The first one comes on a halfback toss off of a pin-and-pull concept, where his responsibility is to seal the linebacker inside to help give the running back an outside rushing lane. However, the backer does a good job of recognizing the play design and immediately works wide post-snap.
So, the receiver adjusts his path to get positioning on the moving target and beats the backer to the spot, forcing the defender to work inside the block, and that plays into the receiver’s hand. Then, Benson adjusts by flipping his hips and getting his hands on the linebacker to keep the linebacker inside and maintain that outside rushing lane for the running back.
The second one is a screen where it’s a two-on-two battle between the receivers and defensive backs at the bottom of the screen. Benson’s job is to block the most dangerous man, or the defender that posses the first threat to tackle the ball carrier.
Pre-snap, it looks like that will be the corner lined up across from him since the outside corner is closer to the line of scrimmage than the slot defender is. However, the corner backpedals while the slot defender reads the screen and crashes downhill, changing the wide receiver’s assignment post-snap. That’s where Benson’s football IQ comes in, as he gets a hat on the crashing defender to give his teammate some space and a one-on-one opportunity against the corner.
The 195th pick of the draft becoming a starter would be a huge win for the Raiders. However, that’s unlikely and shouldn’t be the expectation for Benson. But it helps that he has a handful of traits that Kubiak looks for at the position and can provide value as a deep threat off the bench. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he has experience returning punts.
