Malik Benson’s mental toughness could give the Las Vegas Raiders rookie an edge as an unsettled wide receiver room battles for roster spots and playing time.
Klint Kubiak is never one to mince words or stutter.
And when the Las Vegas Raiders head coach and offensive play caller provided a blunt assessment of the wide receiver room, it garnered attention.
“Yeah, I learned a lot in that we have to get a lot better very fast,” Kubiak said the day after the team’s preseason game against the Houston Texans. “We took a step backwards; that doesn’t mean we can’t go forward. But right now, we are trying to find someone that is accountable and can help us on Sunday. Still looking.”
The comments came after a disappointing outing from promising rookie Malik Benson. Benson, the Raiders’ sixth-round pick (195th overall) in the 2026 draft, is a 6-foot-1, 195-pound burner with legitimate track speed—he ran a 4.37-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine—and he opened eyes this offseason. The hype for the late-round pick steadily grew, and Las Vegas’ second preseason game against the Texans gave Benson a primetime stage to build on it.
Instead, the night went sideways. After snaring a deep pass, the Oregon product dropped a would-be first down—if not a touchdown. Later in the game, he hauled in another pass, only for the ball to be jarred loose by a defender for an incompletion.
The frustration was clear in Benson’s eyes during the close-up sideline shots after each play.
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This is what the preseason is for…
But if there’s ever a time to make these kinds of rookie mistakes, it’s during preseason action.
“I was just telling Malik that’s the beautiful thing about preseason—you get these games so that come Week 1, anything you have going on, you kind of get out of the way, because those games obviously count,” veteran wide receiver Tre Tucker said. “So, for us, we’re just focused on the next task at hand. I think the most important thing is, did we get better from the last game? Did we get better from the last practice? Because that’s what’s going to help us get to where we want to go this year.”
The question now is whether Benson’s mentality can sync with his physicality.
Bouncing back from a disappointing outing is par for the course for productive NFL wide receivers. Watching the 23-year-old’s mental toughness—whether he can endure and not lose confidence—will be worth following as the season nears.
Tucker believes the rookie has the mindset required to overcome the setback.
“Yeah, he’s very—I would say middle demeanor, meaning he’s not too high, he’s not too low, and that’s how you have to be,” Tucker said of Benson. “You can’t be way too high, and you can’t be way too low. You just kind of have to stay in the middle. And like Coach Z (wide receivers coach Zach Azzanni) says, you’ve got to have windshield wipers. A bad play is going to happen.”
“Those guys across from you, they get paid to make plays too. We just have to obviously be the ones making more plays than they do. But when a bad play happens, or anything negative, you’ve got to have windshield wipers and move on to the next play, because that’s the next most important thing.”
What else do the Raiders need to see?
Displaying mental resilience and continuing to dazzle in practice and in Thursday’s preseason finale against the San Francisco 49ers is key to Benson’s NFL future. He doesn’t have to look far to find a prime example of a promising prospect who battled confidence issues during his rookie season: Dont’e Thornton Jr., the Raiders’ fourth-round pick (108th overall) in the 2025 draft.
The advantage Benson has in this scenario—much to the chagrin of both the Raiders and Thornton—is that he’s available, while Thornton is on the mend from an undisclosed injury suffered in early August.
As Kubiak said plainly, the wide receiver room in Las Vegas is very much unsettled.
“I think you talk about any group and apply the same aspects, but from the receiver position specifically, what we’re looking for is guys to get off the ball at the right tempo, guys to get their precise depths, guys to make sure that their break points are correct, and then guys that make moment-of-truth plays,” Raiders offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko said. “That’s not specific to that room—it’s what we’re asking of every position.”
Was Kubiak calling out the wide receiver group with blunt truth, using a motivational tactic—or both? No matter the intent, Tucker and Co. are going about honing their craft.
“I mean, we just come and work and do our job every day. We obviously have a lot of room for improvement,” Tucker said.
One of the areas of opportunity both the organization and the fan base are eyeing is Benson. Is that too much to put on a late-round pick?
Very much so.
But these are the conditions the Silver and Black find themselves in. It’s not Benson’s fault that general manager John Spytek didn’t address the position until the penultimate round of the draft.
And for a prospect like Benson—one who contributes not only on offense as a fear-instilling deep threat but also on special teams as a returner and gunner on coverage units—his size-speed combination and versatility mesh well with Kubiak’s offense. Benson has the speed to work outside or in the slot and the size and physical toughness to work across the often heavily contested middle of the field.
Expect Benson’s next opportunities to showcase development and growth, whether in the preseason finale or the regular season ahead.
*Top Photo: Ramble Illustration/Getty Images