The Las Vegas Raiders won their 2026 NFL season opener against the Miami Dolphins, but the passing game exposed a flaw that could haunt them against tougher competition.

Quarterback Kirk Cousins threw three touchdown passes and the Raiders cruised to a 14-point victory, yet Cousins failed to top 200 passing yards, threw two interceptions, and completed passes at just 5.3 yards per completion. The run game carried the offense, and the short passing game worked against a Dolphins defense that may be the worst in the league. Against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 2, that formula is far less likely to hold up.

Las Vegas’s intermediate and deep game was nearly nonexistent. Cousins finished 21-for-30 with 160 yards, and outside of a couple of targets, the Raiders lived almost exclusively in the short game. Wide receiver Tre Tucker led the team in yards per reception with two catches for 27 yards (13.5 per catch), but the offense never consistently pushed the ball downfield.

Running back Ashton Jeanty posted 102 rushing yards and added 45 receiving yards with two receiving touchdowns. Tight end Michael Mayer contributed 32 receiving yards on six catches. Beyond those two, the rest of the pass-catchers were almost non-existent.

Kubiak wants to push the ball downfield

When asked about the lack of deep shots during his Monday press conference, Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak kept it simple.

“Chuck it deep,” Kubiak said.

That was it. Two words. The implication is clear: Kubiak is scheming up ways to attack vertically. The Raiders tried to get the ball to Tucker downfield in Week 1, but the execution fell short.

Most fans and media members watching the opener saw the same play everyone is talking about, when Cousins sailed a pass over Jalen Nailor’s head out of bounds on a throw that wasn’t even that far down the field. Nailor was wide open, and Cousins simply couldn’t deliver.

The Kirk Cousins arm strength problem isn’t going away

Cousins was accurate enough to win the game. That matters. But the reality is that his arm just doesn’t have the juice anymore to consistently push the ball deep. At 37 years old, that isn’t going to improve as the season wears on. Kubiak can call deep shots all he wants, but if the quarterback can’t deliver the ball, the play design is irrelevant.

This is where the Fernando Mendoza conversation starts to heat up. Mendoza doesn’t have the biggest arm in the world. He’s not going to throw it 80 yards down the field. But he can make those deep ball throws far better than Cousins can at this stage. If the Chargers’ defense forces Cousins into more downfield situations next week, and the wide receivers are getting open, and Cousins still can’t connect, the calls for Mendoza to start are going to get loud.

Enjoy the win, but the deep game needs to improve

For now, the Raiders should soak in the victory. They’re 1-0 with a 14-point win in a season opener for the first time since 2002, the last time being the season they went to the Super Bowl. The defense played well. The run game was dominant. The offense was fine overall. But “fine” won’t cut it against better competition.

The Raiders didn’t score in the fourth quarter after putting up 27 points through three. Had they reached 30, it would have been the first time since Nov. 2023, when Antonio Pierce’s squad hung 30 on the New York Giants in his first game as interim head coach. That inability to finish drives ties directly to limitations in the passing game.

There’s a lot to fix on offense, and the deep game sits at the top of that list. Kubiak knows it. The fan base knows it. The question now is how long the Raiders wait before admitting Mendoza gives them their best chance to fix it.