All things considered, the Raiders’ silver lining came late in the fourth quarter. Dylan Laube found the end zone for the first time in his NFL career, seeing extra reps with Jeanty hit with a foot/ankle injury.
“At the end of the day, when I look back on my career, I think it’s going to be an emotional time,” Laube said of the touchdown. “But right now we’re 3-2 and we have a long season left to play.”
And it would be remiss not to mention Fernando Mendoza, who entered the game on the Raiders’ final offensive possession.
The 2026 No. 1 overall pick looked promising in his first NFL practice, going 6 of 8 for 48 yards. He showed off his mobility by extending a few plays with his feet while almost converting on fourth down with a three-yard run.
“It’s a good experience to have some regular season snaps to go off of and evaluate and improve on,” Mendoza said after his first NFL action. “So if I’m called upon in the future, I at least have some experience, rather than none.”
Any search for glimmers of hope ends quickly. The Raiders simply came out flat and out of sync on this East Coast trip.
The good news is that they will be returning home within the next two weeks. The bad news is that the Bills and Rams are next on the schedule. To prevent this loss from getting worse, the Raiders must quickly rediscover the identity that carried them through the first month of the season.
“We have everything ahead of us as a team,” Kubiak said. “We’re not happy with what happened today and we need to do something. We need to fix this and move on.”
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