The Las Vegas Raiders are 1-0, but the Los Angeles Chargers will test whether their Week 1 formula can actually travel. Here are three keys to 2-0.
If the Raiders want to leave Inglewood 2-0, they do not need a moral victory or a “we hung around” box score. They need three things to look a lot like last week, under much harder conditions.
1. Keep feeding Jeanty and Washington, and accept that Los Angeles will dare them to do it again.
Ashton Jeanty was the entire offense last Sunday, and that is no exaggeration. He carried 23 times for 102 yards and caught six passes for 45 yards, and both of his touchdowns came out of the backfield. Mike Washington Jr. added seven carries for 41 yards and looked like a real change-of-pace back instead of a camp body. Together, they ran for 143 yards and let Kirk Cousins play manager instead of hero. That is the Kubiak identity in one paragraph.
The problem is obvious: Miami could not stop the run, but Los Angeles will try. The Chargers allowed 116 rushing yards to the Cardinals on 34 carries, which is not elite but is organized and physical, built around safety Derwin James flying downhill and Khalil Mack setting the edge. Chris O’Leary’s defense will not sit in a light box and let Jeanty work. It will load the line, force Cousins to win early downs through the air and dare Las Vegas to stay stubborn.
Stubborn is the correct answer…
If the Raiders abandon the run because the first six carries go for 3 yards, the game tilts immediately toward Justin Herbert. Jeanty does not need another 100-yard day to win this. He needs volume, second-effort yards after contact and the same checkdowns that turned into touchdowns against Miami. Washington’s job is even more specific: keep Jeanty fresh in the third quarter, punish light substitutions and hit the edge when Los Angeles overcommits inside.
The offensive line looked like a unit last week and created lanes Jeanty never consistently had as a rookie. Against Mack and Tuli Tuipulotu, though, those lanes will close faster. The answer is not to get cute with empty sets. It is to stay in 12 and 21 personnel, let Connor Heyward dirty up the box and make Los Angeles tackle for four quarters. If Jeanty and Washington combine for 25 or more carries and the Raiders hold the ball for 32 minutes, they are in the game regardless of what the passing chart looks like.
That is the entire first key. Do not get bored with what worked.
2. The defense has to look like last week against a quarterback who is not Malik Willis.
The run game only buys time if the defense can repeat its Week 1 work against a far better quarterback. That is the hard one, so we should say it plainly.
The Raiders defense was the best thing about Week 1. It produced five sacks, allowed 13 points and posted two scoreless quarters. Maxx Crosby still wrecked the pocket on a managed snap count. Kwity Paye announced himself with two sacks and eight pressures in a Raiders uniform. Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker each finished with six tackles and played as if they had been in Rob Leonard’s system for two years, not two weeks. Treydan Stukes intercepted Willis, and the Dolphins’ only touchdown was a Willis scramble after a Cousins interception. That was a real defensive performance.
Herbert, however, is not Willis. He will get the ball out. He will find Ladd McConkey on the first scripted drive if McConkey plays, as Arizona learned when McConkey went for 60 yards on the Chargers’ opening series, and he will make the Raiders pay if a rookie corner sits too far off. Darien Porter is out with a foot injury, which means Hezekiah Masses or Jermod McCoy likely will start opposite Eric Stokes, with Taron Johnson in the slot. That is a lot of youth against a quarterback who has spent years dissecting AFC West secondaries.
So can the defense do it again?
Not in the same way. The Raiders will not sack Herbert five times unless the Chargers’ interior protection collapses the way it did on the fourth-and-goal sack against Arizona. What they can copy is the shape of the Miami game: early-down disruption, disciplined rush lanes so Herbert cannot escape left and a second level that tackles Omarion Hampton in the hole instead of giving him the cutback.
Getting there starts with using the pass rush wisely. Crosby does not need 70 snaps. He needs the ones that matter: third down, obvious passing situations and the two-minute drill. Paye has to be the every-down complement so Los Angeles cannot slide the line to Crosby and forget the other edge. Dean and Walker have to win the middle of the field against play-action, because Mike McDaniel will motion Hampton and throw behind the linebackers the first time Las Vegas overruns a run fit.
The honest standard is not another 13-point game. It is keeping Herbert from getting comfortable. If the Chargers are facing second-and-long more often than second-and-short, the Raiders’ pass rush becomes a problem again. If Herbert is in rhythm by the second series, this turns into a track meet Las Vegas is not built to win. “Defense, defense, defense” is not a slogan this week. It is the only way a run-first team survives a road division game against a better quarterback.
Special teams matter on the margins, too. Arizona blocked a punt and turned the SoFi Stadium crowd against the home team. The Raiders do not need a blocked punt. They need to avoid the field-position gifts that let Herbert operate in plus territory.
3. Somebody in the wide receiver room has to become a problem, because the Chargers will take the run away.
Even a strong defensive showing will not be enough if the offense becomes one-dimensional, and that is exactly what Los Angeles will try to force.
Here’s the uncomfortable Week 1 tape: Cousins threw for 160 yards, and the leading receiver was Jeanty. Michael Mayer had six catches for 32 yards. Among actual wideouts, Jalen Nailor had three for 27, Tre Tucker two for 27, Jack Bech three for 23 and the first touchdown, and Malik Benson one for 6. That is a perfectly functional day when the run game is eating. It is a losing formula if Los Angeles puts eight in the box and says, “Beat us over the top.”
The problem grows if Brock Bowers is out. He is doubtful after his knee procedure, and the smart bet is that he sits another week. In that case, Mayer becomes the safety valve, and the wideouts have to finish drives. The assignment is not to get open. It is to finish drives.
Bech is the most logical candidate…
He already found the end zone from 15 yards out; he is big enough to win against press and he is the closest thing this room has to a possession receiver who can move the chains on third-and-6 when the linebackers are cheating toward Jeanty. Tucker is the vertical answer. If James sits down in the box, Tucker has to make Los Angeles pay on the first shot play Cousins is willing to take. Nailor was signed to be exactly this kind of complementary piece, with alignment flexibility, enough speed to threaten the boundary and enough polish to win on intermediate crossers. Benson is the wild card, the sixth-round pick who flashed in camp and will get a real target share if the first two options are covered.
Somebody has to go for 60 yards…
It does not have to be pretty, and it does not have to be eight catches. It has to be enough that James cannot spend the second half as an extra linebacker. The moment he is free to roam the box, Jeanty’s afternoon becomes a series of 2-yard gains, and Cousins starts hunting for heroes. That is how this game gets away.
Cousins, meanwhile, will have to live with the consequences. He threw two interceptions last week and still won because the defense and the run game covered for him. He will not get that luxury if the wideouts disappear. The throw to Bech in the first quarter is the template: on time, at the correct leverage, with the receiver left to do the rest. The two interceptions were the warning. Against a Chargers secondary that just spent a week watching those exact throws on tape, the margin for a late ball over the middle is gone.
The Raiders do not need a WR1 performance for the ages. They need one player to announce that this receiving corps is more than a collection of names around Jeanty and, eventually, Bowers. Until that happens, every stacked box is both a compliment and a threat.
Related: Dylan Laube has done enough to make this Raiders decision easy
The road test, without the poetry…
SoFi Stadium has not been kind to the Raiders. The Chargers have owned the building against them for years, and a 1-0 team walking into a 0-1 building is exactly the spot where a young roster starts believing its own Week 1 press clippings. Miami was a script. This is a division game on the road, on CBS, with Herbert on the other sideline and a coaching staff that just got embarrassed at home and will be looking for someone to take it out on.
The path is not complicated. Pound Jeanty until Washington can spell him. Make Herbert work behind the sticks. Force one wideout, whether Bech, Tucker, Nailor or whoever wins the first contested ball, to matter when the box is loaded. Do those three things, and 2-0 is available. If the Raiders flatter themselves into thinking the Dolphins tape travels unchanged, this becomes the first reminder that the AFC West does not award style points for a clean September opener.
Kubiak’s offense is built to be boring in the best way. Leonard’s defense just showed it can wreck a game when the quarterback holds the ball. The wide receiver room is the unfinished sentence. Sunday is when that sentence either gets a verb or the Raiders spend the flight home talking about how close they were. Close does not travel. The ground game, the front seven and one grown-up afternoon from the perimeter do.
*Top Photo: Ramble Illustration/Getty Images