The Raiders Found Their Identity in the Fourth Quarter

Trailing 27-16 in the third quarter at the Superdome, the Las Vegas Raiders scored the game’s final 19 points to beat the New Orleans Saints 35-27.

New Orleans failed to hold the ball down the stretch, as four consecutive possessions in the fourth quarter ended in turnovers. Las Vegas capitalized behind quarterback Kirk Cousins, who threw three more touchdown passes and no interceptions.

Tight end Brock Bowers, playing in his first game back, looked as if he had never left.

The Raiders are 3-0 for the first time since 2021. They needed every bit of the late surge to get there.

Holy fourth-quarter defense, Batman…

The Raiders defense had its biggest day of the season. New Orleans had been rolling. Tyler Shough threw four touchdown passes; the Saints were 4-for-4 in the red zone and they converted third downs, all in front of their home crowd at the Superdome. Then Rob Leonard’s defense decided the rest of the afternoon belonged to Las Vegas.

The first blow came from Malcolm Koonce. Early in the fourth quarter, with the Saints still leading, Koonce ripped the ball free on a sack of Shough, and Maxx Crosby fell on it at the Raiders’ 45. It was the kind of play a pass rush is supposed to create and a star is supposed to finish. Crosby did not need a sack to change the game. He needed the football. Six plays later, Las Vegas had the lead.

Shough tried to answer, but rookie cornerback Hezekiah Masses did not let him. Masses, who had two interceptions the week before against the Chargers, jumped a throw on third-and-6 and returned it 35 yards. He lost the ball at the end of the return, but Adam Butler recovered at the New Orleans 4, and the offense needed only a short push after that. The sequence showed what people mean when they say a defense creates points: coverage tight enough to force a bad throw and pursuit fast enough to turn it into a short field. Even the fumble stayed in silver and black.

The Saints still had time, and they drove into scoring range again…

The Raiders met them there. Koonce and Jeremy Chinn kept coming, and another sack knocked the ball loose near the Las Vegas 20. New Orleans, perfect near the goal line all day, never got another try from there.

The final play was the cleanest picture of the quarter. With 1:02 left, Shough hit Juwan Johnson in the flat. Johnson had already scored twice, but linebacker Nakobe Dean, who finished with 11 solo tackles and seemed to be in every gap, stripped him, and the Raiders recovered. Victory formation followed.

Four possessions produced four takeaways, and the Raiders closed on a 19-0 run. That was not a defense that got lucky in a dome. It changed its temperament when the game demanded it. Leonard did not sit in a shell and hope Shough missed. He kept sending pressure and kept disguising who was coming. Shough had spent two weeks winning late, but on Sunday he never saw a clean pocket when it mattered. Crosby, Koonce, Chinn, Dean, Masses and Butler had different names and the same idea: get the ball, give the offense a chance, do it again.

Entering the game, the unit was already part of the league’s early-season conversation about takeaways. This was its loudest chapter yet. The Saints scored 27 points in three quarters and none in the fourth, a result of aggressive play calling with teeth.

Kubiak was as cool as the other side of the pillow…

Plenty of first-year coaches panic when an 11-point hole opens on the road. Las Vegas Raiders coach Klint Kubiak did not.

The third quarter had gone sideways. The New Orleans Saints ripped off two quick scores, and a fumble handed them a short field. The Superdome was loud, and the Raiders could have started heaving the ball and hoping. Instead, Kubiak kept running his offense. Mike Washington broke a 36-yard touchdown run to cut the deficit to 27-22, the first deep breath of the afternoon. It was also a reminder that this staff will take the explosive run when it is there and will not abandon the plan when it is not.

Then the defense started handing Kubiak gifts, and he did the one thing comeback teams must do. He cashed them.

After the Koonce-Crosby takeaway, Las Vegas went 55 yards in six plays. There was no drama and no hero ball. Quarterback Kirk Cousins found Cody White from 4 yards out, and the Raiders led 28-27. The two-point try failed, but Kubiak did not flinch. He had the lead, and he trusted the defense to go get another stop.

It did…

After Masses and Butler set the offense up at the New Orleans 4, Kubiak again did not get cute. Ashton Jeanty got a pair of carries, and on third-and-4, Cousins threw to tight end Brock Bowers for the touchdown. The extra point made it 35-27. That is how you finish a comeback. You do not need a 60-yard bomb when the defense has already done the hard part. You need a coach who stays on schedule, uses the personnel that just walked through the door and refuses to turn a short field into a field goal.

Kubiak said after the game that he learned something about his team’s resolve, but the game showed he already had some of his own. Down two scores on the road, in a building where the Saints had beaten Baltimore a week earlier, he kept calling the game he wanted to call. The run still had a place. The tight ends still had a place. The next play was still the next play. When the turnovers arrived, the offense was ready instead of frantic.

That is how a roster of a few people picked to be 3-0 ended up there.

Kirko Chainz was ice…

Kirk Cousins completed 22 of 33 passes for 248 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. It was his third consecutive three-touchdown game, something no Raiders quarterback had done to open a season. The national shows that spent August describing his job as a bridge are starting to talk about the man playing it.

He was not wild or lucky. He was on time.

His first touchdown pass was a 3-yard throw to tight end Michael Mayer into a tight window. The go-ahead score was a 4-yard toss to wide receiver Cody White, a play that developed later in the progression. The clincher was a 4-yard pass to tight end Brock Bowers, who caught it just outside the end zone and drove through a defender to finish. Three targets, three different answers and no interceptions showed a quarterback who trusts what he sees and does not force what he does not.

The bigger story was who Cousins had back. Sunday was Bowers’ 2026 debut after a meniscus procedure, and he finished with 10 catches for 116 yards and a touchdown. He had three receptions for 37 yards on the opening drive and caught a back-shoulder throw on third-and-3 that moved the chains while the Raiders still faced a two-score deficit. Before halftime, a sideline catch on third-and-14 kept a field-goal drive alive. New Orleans assigned cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry to cover him, and it did not matter. Cousins kept finding Bowers, and Bowers kept winning at the catch point.

That pairing changes the offense…

Weeks 1 and 2 showed Las Vegas could win without its best pass catcher, and Week 3 showed what the ceiling looks like with him. Cousins can live on rhythm throws to Bowers, then use the attention Bowers draws to hit Mayer, White and the running backs. He looked comfortable, calm and in command, a veteran who does not need the building to be quiet to operate.

The media is catching up because the production is hard to talk around. Cousins has thrown nine touchdown passes in three games, and Sunday’s comeback came on the road with the star tight end just returning from injury. “Kirko Chainz” is not a cute nickname this month. It describes the player running the operation.

None of that makes next Sunday easy. The Kansas City Chiefs are also 3-0 after beating Miami 24-10, and they visit Allegiant Stadium as the team the AFC West still measures itself against. They have quarterback Patrick Mahomes, coach Andy Reid and a roster that has lived in January for years. The Raiders have beaten Miami, the Chargers and a Saints team that faded in the fourth quarter. That is a real start, but it is not yet a statement the national pundits are required to believe.

A strong showing against Kansas City would change the volume, and a win would change the sentence. This is the week the question shifts from whether Las Vegas is beating bad teams to whether it belongs with the good ones. The defense that forced four turnovers in one quarter must now do it against a quarterback who does not panic. The offense that just got Bowers back must show the connection holds up against a defense that has seen every look.

The Raiders have the record, the late-game proof, a quarterback playing as if the job is his and a coach who does not rattle. Sunday against the Chiefs is where that becomes a conversation the rest of the league cannot wave off. The pundits have not fully bought in, and a strong performance from the silver and black is how Las Vegas makes them.