Resilience powering the Raiders’ renaissance thus far in 2026 campaign

Las Vegas entered the new year with severely low expectations coming off a 3-14 season that gave the team the No. 1 overall selection in the 2026 NFL Draft, which ended up being Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. General manager John Spytek was flush with coin and spent the cap space wisely by landing high-priced free agents like center Tyler Linderbaum and linebackers Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker , to name a few.

But despite the influx in talent in both free agency and the draft, expectations remained tempered with analytics models giving the Raiders a 6.7 percent chance of starting 3-0.

After topping the Miami Dolphins and Los Angeles Chargers to start the season, caveats popped up immediately. Such as the lowly Dolphins and listless Chargers were cupcakes and of course the Raiders beating them was going to happen — dismissive in nature.