Raiders vs. Chiefs: Winners & Losers From Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, Nev.-The Las Vegas Raiders (3-1) fell to the perennial AFC West powers, the Kansas City Chiefs (4-0), 30-27 on Sunday.

Despite the first loss of the season for the Silver and Black, reasonable fans know that the 3-1 start, and battling an exceptional Chiefs team in the midst of a rebuild, is a great start.

Winner and Losers

Despite the loss, the Raiders have plenty to build on, and here are the biggest winners and losers.

Chiefs coach and, in my opinion, the best coach in the NFL, Andy Reid, praised the Silver and Black.

“My hat goes off to the Raiders and the job which they’ve done there. Listen, they’re a good football team, and we knew it coming in. We figured it’d take four quarters of good, hard football. It is the Raiders. It is an AFC rival, and there’s a ton of tradition there. They’re building it here, and with that competition, it increases it even more. So, my hat goes off to them.”

“Gotta be better, but you know what? We’re winning. We’re gonna win the game.”

– @Raiders coach Klint Kubiak to @tracywolfson at halftime pic.twitter.com/87ESYVPBiC

– NFL on CBS (@NFLonCBS) October 4, 2026

Coach Klint Kubiak

Exiting the field at halftime, he did the usual coach interview on CBS. He didn’t just shock the nation; he stunned it when he boldly declared, “Gotta be better, but you know what? We’re winning. We’re gonna win the game.”

John Madden famously advised, “Never take points off the board.” He strongly believed that if a penalty occurred on a successful field goal or extra point, coaches should accept the points rather than take them back to chase a touchdown. #Discuss

– Hondo Carpenter (@HondoCarpenter) October 4, 2026

You may question his decision to take points off the board; that is a fair debate (I agree with him), but he has single-handedly infused this team with fight, vigor, and bravado that would have made Al Davis proud. It’s been a long time since this team had it, and Kubiak rightfully put it out there for the nation. This Raiders’ rebuild is solidly planted on toughness.

It is one of many reasons his guys love him. He believes in them, and they in him.

Chiefs RB Kenneth Walker III won a Super Bowl with Kubiak, is friends with him, and Kubiak specifically recognized him in his opening press conference. He loves his former coach and praised his skill set afterward.

“He’s doing great. I didn’t get to talk to him or anything but obviously he’s a great coach. I was there with him last year, and I know how he is. He always keeps everybody detailed and hold everybody accountable. So, he’s a great coach, and he’s going to continuously do well.”

He did make a controversial call that goes against everything the legendary John Madden said you should never do: “Take points off the board.”

After a successful field goal, the Chiefs were penalized, and Kubiak elected to take the points off the board and go for it on fourth down.

He was not successful.

He addressed it, saying, “…obviously, there’s a point there where I took three points off the board, and we were going to be aggressive going into the game. I don’t regret it. I regret not getting it.”

I am not going to act critical of Kubiak because the risk failed. I thought it was the right thing to do, and I would have done it too. The Raiders have overachieved, and Kubiak wanted and needed his team to see, tangibly, the faith he has in them.

The one thing everyone can agree was a first-year-coach mistake was that, at the end of the game, Kirk Cousins was rushed because Kubiak delayed getting the play in. Once again, in true Kubiak fashion, he took it head-on.

“I didn’t get the play call in fast enough to the quarterback. Total missed opportunity. So, I blew it.”

Ashton Jeanty loves his coach and the aggressive nature he leads with: “We love that from him, and that just shows the confidence he has in us as players and as a team. So, we just got to continue to get better and make those plays.”

Reid wasn’t shy about what Kubiak is doing; he is a fan of the Raiders’ first-year head man.

“Klint’s [Kubiak] done a nice job. Like I mentioned earlier, he’s holding the guys accountable for what he wants to get done. You can see that in their discipline of play. They haven’t had a lot of turnovers, haven’t had a lot of penalties on either side. They’re trying to do what he’s asking them to do, he’s demanding it and it shows.”

QB Kirk Cousins

While not perfect, no one is, he was truly exceptional last night, and the Raiders would not have had a chance had he not been at the helm.

Cousins was 31/52 for 365 yards, threw two touchdown passes, threw one interception, and finished with a QB rating of 86.

All that despite not having a WR1, TE Brock Bowers essentially being taken out of the game plan by the Chiefs’ superstar DC, and Jalen Nailor going out with a concussion. Kubiak wasn’t surprised by his veteran leader.

“Yeah, that’s who he is. That’s who he is. He played really good football tonight. That’s why we brought him here.”

Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and Cousins are friends, and he had high praise for his leadership of the Silver and Black.

“When Kirk [Cousins] is dealing like that, man, it’s hard to stop. He knows the entire offense, and he gets the ball out of his hand to his playmakers, and they got a guy like Brock Bowers out there making plays. That’s a really good football team. It was a good win for us, but we have to keep building and keep getting better, and I’m sure they’ll do the same.”

Cousins had no time to praise his performance. “Every game is so important in this league, and so anytime you feel like you left one that you could have had, it hurts a lot. But all we can do now is respond and get back to work and be hard on ourselves tomorrow and get ready for New England.”

K Matt Gay

He continues to shine for the Raiders. Tonight, the offense settled for too many field goals, but that isn’t his fault. He once again kept the Raiders in the game and looked like an All-Pro. He was an outstanding 4/4 on field goals.

He said of his performance, “Any day you can go out there and make your kicks. Alex [Ward] and AJ [Cole] did a great job getting opportunities, and they were awesome with snaps and holds. Big guys up front were awesome for protection. Gave me a clean pocket to kick from, and you try and stack one kick after the next.”

“And anytime you can go out there and help your team, that’s the most important thing for me. Just going out there and getting those guys to believe in me that I can go out there and get points on the board for our team.”

While disappointed in his offense settling for so many FGs, Cousins is thrilled to have the sure-thing kicker Gay.

“Yeah, he’s been outstanding. We’ve put him in some tough spots with the lengths of his kicks, but he keeps responding. In this league, you really need it. It makes a major difference, and so many of these games and the bigger games, seem to come down to kicks. There’s so much football up ahead, and we’ll rely on him quite a bit in the weeks to come.”

Defense

The aforementioned future Hall of Fame QB Patrick Mahomes raved about the Raiders’ improved defense under Rob Leonard.

“That’s a good football team. Defensively, they got a lot of veteran guys that came over to add into the talent they had, the D-line, the linebackers, and then the secondary, all were playing together, and really getting us off the field a lot of the time. We had some explosive plays there, especially towards the end that really helped us, but that’s a really good football team.”

Maxx Crosby

nothing but love after the whistle @KCvsLV on CBS/Paramount+

Stream on @NFLPluspic.twitter.com/j2d4FXQj8K

– NFL (@NFL) October 4, 2026

The Raiders superstar forced the Chiefs to do everything they could to avoid him, and even then they had to poke, prod, and hold, and that much attention opened up opportunities for multiple other players. Mahomes wasn’t silent, however, about what he means to the Silver and Black.

“He’s going to go hard the entire time. He’s a great player, great competitor. He’s tackling, he’s getting the hits and stuff like that, but I’m going to hop back up. He helped me back up just like I would try to help him back up if I saw him in that position. It’s a ton of respect there. That’s a good football team, and he’s kind of the leader of them. I’m expecting for a lot more battles as my career goes on.”

QB Fernando Mendoza

I realize seeing that name when he didn’t play will shock most of you. But the young man NFL executives called the best NFL Draft prospect in the last four years is a winner, too.

Mahomes specifically addressed how having Cousins as a mentor can help his development in big games while sitting on the bench. Mahomes went through it and is the blueprint for the Raiders to do the same with Mendoza.

“It’s doing a lot of great things for him [Fernando Mendoza]. Kirk’s a true pro, a quarterback who knows how to run the court of the room, the team, everything the right way, and he’s going to do it the right way. You saw that today. He’s coming off injury too, he had a bad injury kind of late in his career.”

“For him to get back to where he was before that, and to be able to deal. He started the season off great, so it’ll be great for Fernando to learn, and just take in. You don’t know until you’re in the NFL. Hopefully not too much, because it went really well for me and Alex [Smith], hopefully maybe not that much.”

Raiders TE Room

The Raiders’ TEs, despite the Chiefs’ efforts to take Bowers out, accounted for 16 of Cousins’ completions, one TD, and 200 yards. The best and deepest TE room in the NFL showed out.

Kubiak was impressed and said so. “Yeah, Brock [Bowers], Mike [Mayer], Ian [Thomas], those guys, they’re an impressive group. Luke Steckel is an impressive coach, and we count on them every week.”

Michael Mayer is one of the best tight ends in the NFL, and he talked about the threat the three Raiders TEs pose and what they can do.

“We obviously got tons of good tight ends here on the team. Klint [Kubiak] does a fantastic job of coaching us up. Obviously, our tight ends coach, Stack [Luke Steckel], is an amazing coach, amazing person. We know we got a lot of weapons in our room.”

“We know what we can do. We’re just going to keep getting better every single day, keep fighting, keep battling. There’s a ton of stuff that I still need to get better at. I need to block way better than I’ve been blocking. Always a lot to get better at, but very proud of our tight end room for sure.”

Dareke Young

Young, while listed as a WR, is not a great threat at that position. In fact, if he were solely a WR, he wouldn’t be a Raider.

He is here because he is a special teams superstar. His fumble on a kick return was brutal, and when you are solely on the team for special teams, as a veteran, he can’t make that mistake. He is a terrific player, but for a player on the roster, at an anemic position, the pressure is intense. This isn’t personal; he is a terrific young man, but the mistake is inexcusable.

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Today’s best reads

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How Raiders Could Become Bigger Story With Win Over Chiefs
Major Statements Raiders Can Make in Week 4

This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi as Raiders vs. Chiefs: Winners & Losers From Las Vegas.

This story was originally published October 5, 2026 at 3:00 AM.

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Raiders vs. Chiefs: Winners & Losers From Las Vegas