You know what they say: revenge is a dish best served during the 1 p.m. window of a mid-October regular season game.
The New England Patriots will get some chance for pay-back on Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders, after they spoiled Mike Vrabel’s first game with the organization last fall. Of course, these are not the same Raiders that left Foxborough with a 20-13 victory in hand in 2025.
So, in order to find out more about the Patriots’ opponent, we spoke with Matt Holder of Pats Pulpit’s sister
site Silver and Black Pride, the SB Nation community for all things Raiders.
What effect has Klint Kubiak had on the Raiders’ organization and offense early in his tenure?
I write a weekly NFL Power Rankings roundup column, and the big theme after the hard-fought battle with the Chiefs is that Kubiak is clearly building something special in Las Vegas. He’s come in and immediately changed the culture and has managed to get buy-in from the players. The team is doing a lot of little things like wide receivers run blocking, all defenders pursuing the football, playing through the whistle, etc. That seems pretty simple, but it wasn’t happening with the previous regimes.
On top of that, Kubiak has brought over his creative offensive scheme and has helped defensive coordinator Rob Leonard install a variation of Mike Macdonald’s defense. Granted, Leonard and Macdonald did work together for a year in Baltimore, so Leonard gets credit for that too. But my overall point is the Raiders finally have good systems on both sides of the ball and a well-coached team for the first time in a long time.
Let’s be honest, the Raiders’ roster is not very talented and has plenty of glaring holes. That’s why this season was viewed as year one of a rebuild heading into the campaign. However, the Raiders find themselves at 3-1 and just went toe-to-toe with a team that’s one of the betting favorites to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, six months after having the No. 1 pick in the draft. That’s a culture change and a big feather in Kubiak’s cap.
How is Brock Bowers being used under Kubiak? Should the Patriots treat him like a WR1?
They aren’t the same type of player, so this isn’t a one-for-one comparison, but Kubiak is using Bowers similarly to what he did with Jaxon Smith-Njigba in Seattle last year. The 2025 Offensive Player of the Year would line up all over the Seahawks’ offense so that he could get favorable matchups. We haven’t seen Bowers deployed quite as diversely as JSN was a year ago, but he’s also only played in two games under Kubiak so far and is constantly at different alignments.
It’s funny, despite being labeled as a “tight end”, the “football robot from heaven” has only been in-line on 12.6% of his passsnaps, per Pro Football Focus. It’s kind of like how Sean Payton used to use Jimmy Graham, where Graham was split out wide so much that he tried to get wide receiver money when the Saints put the franchise tag on him back in 2014.
Because of that, and the fact that the Raiders don’t have a ton of talent at receiver, opposing defenses kind of have to give Bowers the WR1 treatment. He’s such a unique player/athlete for his position that he’ll beat safeties and linebackers all day if you treat him like a traditional tight end. The Broncos started the trend when the 2024 first-round pick was a rookie. Denver got tired of him beating their safeties and just put Patrick Surtain II on Bowers. That worked because Surtain is one of the best corners in the league and helped neutralize Bowers. So, if Gonzalez is playing on Sunday, I think the Patriots have to put their best on the Raiders’ best.
Ashton Jeanty is immensely talented, but his stats this season aren’t reflecting that. Where’s the disconnect?
There are a few factors going on.
First, Jeanty doesn’t seem to be 100% right now. He suffered a sprained ankle at the end of training camp and hasn’t missed any gametime, but I think he aggravated it in Week 3 against the Saints. The CBS broadcast team said he got his ankle taped or re-taped mid-game, and Jeanty didn’t have the same explosiveness on his jump cuts we’ve seen before. I get the sense that he’s healthy enough to play but isn’t at full capacity at the moment.
Second, the offensive line has improved but still isn’t very good right now. Like last year, the second-year back is still facing a good amount of defenders in the backfield. For example, Next Gen Stats has 234 of his 264 rushing yards (88.6%) coming after contact. Also, he’s currently facing the fourth-highest percentage of stacked boxes (32.1%, and it was the second-most heading into Week 4) because defenses have been daring Kirk Cousins to beat them deep. Cousins has played well enough to suggest that trend will slow down, but that’s been the primary game plan for the Raiders’ offense so far.
On a similar note, Kubiak mentioned that he feels like there is a tell in the running game, and my podcast/YouTube co-host broke down how that might be tied to how the Raiders are using motion when they run the ball. The Chiefs were rotating a safety in the box just about every time they saw someone motion across the formation, which contributes to the heavy boxes mentioned above. As good as Kubiak’s scheme has been, there’s still room for improvement, and I’m glad that he seems to have caught on to it early rather than continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results.
Also, the Seahawks’ rushing attack got off to a slow start last year, as Vincent Bonsignore of the California Post noted:
The early returns in Seattle last season were hardly overwhelming, either. With Kubiak in his first and only year as offensive coordinator, the Seahawks averaged just 3.7 yards per carry through their first eight games, finishing below 100 rushing yards four times. Over their final 12 games, including the Super Bowl, they surpassed 100 yards 10 times and averaged 4.5 yards per carry.
This provides more hope that the Raiders and Jeanty will improve down the line.
What did the Raiders do to slow down Patrick Mahomes, and how much of that plan could translate against Drake Maye?
I’m going to contradict myself a bit here, but the way Leonard slowed down Mahomes was similar to how Mahomes was able to generate explosive plays.
The Raiders were able to get pressure by running simulated pressures, creeper blitzes or rushing five defenders. Essentially giving the offense confusing looks to set up one-on-one opportunities for guys like Maxx Crosby and Malcolm Koonce while still having enough coverage defenders to avoid giving up the big play. That’s been Leonard’s formula all year, regardless of the opponent.
However, he got in trouble last week when he dialed up the heat too much by calling Cover 0. Vegas ran Cover 0 three times against Mahomes, resulting in a 41-yard catch, a two-yard touchdown and a 55-yard completion to increase the Chiefs’ probability by over 50% (h/t Ryan Paganetti on X/Twitter). Las Vegas has the highest rate of Cover 0 usage (9.6%) in the NFL through the first four weeks of the season, according to Fantasy Points Data, and it was obvious on film that the Chiefs were ready for it.
So, I think Leonard has to get away from sending the house, but I’d still expect him to scheme up pressure against Maye. I know Maye did much better under pressure last week, but his numbers against pressure in the first three weeks were pretty bad. Expect the Raiders to test whether the 2025 MVP runner-up has turned the corner or if the Bills game was more of a fluke.
Who are some under-the-radar Raiders that Patriots fans should know about entering this game?
Koonce is the first guy who comes to mind. Crosby, deservedly, gets a lot of attention, but Koonce is also having a great year, and they have nearly identical pass-rush win rates so far this season (19.8% for Crosby and 18.9% for Koonce, per PFF). Also, fifth-round corner Hezekiah Masses isn’t the stickiest in coverage and has had a few rookie moments this season, but he has great ball skills with three interceptions and six total passes defended in just three starts. Masses can capitalize on mistakes, and Maye enters the week leading the league with seven interceptions.
Offensively, there are two guys in the passing game who can hurt you if the defense is paying too much attention to Bowers: wide receiver Tre Tucker and fellow tight end Michael Mayer. Tucker is the deep threat, and Mayer is the chain-moving check-down option. Tucker had a pair of 20-ish-yard catches last year in New England and scorched the Chargers for five catches, 119 yards and a 40-yard score a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, Mayer is coming off one of the best games of his career with eight catches for 82 yards, all of which came either behind the line of scrimmage or zero to nine yards past it. Cousins likes checking the ball down to his tight ends, and Mayer is good at using his size after the catch to pick up first downs. He’s also an effective contested-catch target.
To be fair, the Raiders haven’t maximized Bowers, Tucker and Mayer in the same game yet. But they do have at least one threat in all three levels of the passing game to potentially have a “pick your poison” type of attack.
