Raiders erase 11-point hole, beat Saints 35-27 to stay unbeaten

NEW ORLEANS — Nothing came easy for the Raiders in the Big Easy.

Las Vegas beat the Saints 35-27, stayed unbeaten, and started 3-0 for the first time since 2021. It took the whole of 2025 for this franchise to collect three victories. Klint Kubiak and Kirk Cousins have matched that total by Week 3.

The Raiders used to be finished when the deficit hit double digits. Sunday in the Superdome, they were down 11 and still won.

Cousins was 22-of-33 for 248 yards and three touchdowns, with no interceptions. He has three scores in each of his first three games with the club, something no Raiders quarterback had done.

Kubiak, still unbeaten as a head coach, put it plainly afterward.

“He has the experience. He has the maturity. And he’s making plays,” Kubiak said. “He’s been leading this way since April.”

The first half was a field-goal fight that the Raiders edged. Matt Gay hit from 41, 37 and 25. Thomas Booker blocked a Saints extra point after Tyler Shough’s 2-yard touchdown to Juwan Johnson.

Cousins found Michael Mayer from 3 yards out. New Orleans answered with Noah Fant from 3. Halftime was 16-13, Las Vegas, the kind of score that used to feel temporary.

It did not hold. The Saints drove 87 yards to open the second half, Shough to Johnson again, 20-16. Dylan Laube fumbled the kickoff. Jordan Howden recovered at the Raiders 32.

Two plays later Fant was in again, 16 yards, and the Superdome had its home opener the way it wanted: 27-16, 11 points, and a visitor that has spent too many seasons finding a way to make that the end of the story.

Rookie Mike Washington Jr. cut into it with a tackle-breaking 36-yard touchdown run, the two-point try failing, 27-22. Then Malcolm Koonce hit Shough as the quarterback started his throwing motion. The ball came loose. Maxx Crosby recovered at the Raiders 45.

Officials reviewed it and stood by the fumble, the same kind of play New Orleans thought it had won in Detroit in Week 1 and did not. Boos came down. Kellen Moore threw his arms out.

Shough said he thought his arm was going forward, then added that it did not really matter, that he had to get the ball out sooner.

“I just assumed it was a strip-sack,” Koonce said. “We just got a little bit of momentum and started balling.”

Six plays later Cousins hit Cody White from 4 yards. The two-point pass failed. 28-27, Raiders, with 9:21 left.

“Momentum swung against us early in the third quarter, but the defense just kept showing up for us, creating turnovers and giving us short fields,” Cousins said. “We were able to capitalize on them.”

Hezekiah Masses, the rookie corner who already had two interceptions against the Chargers, picked Shough and gave Las Vegas the ball at the Saints 4. Three plays, and Cousins found Brock Bowers, back from a knee procedure and playing his first game of the year, for the 4-yard score. 35-27.

Bowers finished with 10 catches for 116 yards and that touchdown. Kubiak was not surprised.

“To come off an injury and play the way he did was very impressive,” Kubiak said. “We needed it. We’re not surprised.”

The Saints still had two chances to tie it. Jeremy Chinn strip-sacked Shough on fourth down. Nakobe Dean, shades of the Chargers game, punched the ball out of Johnson’s hands with just over a minute left.

Four turnovers in the fourth quarter. Nineteen unanswered points. Moore did not argue the ending.

“Turnovers in the fourth quarter got us and we weren’t able to overcome those,” Moore said. “Those guys finished better than us. We had our opportunities and we didn’t get it done.”

Crosby said the same thing from the other sideline, without the regret. Down 11, the defense gathered and talked about not panicking.

“In those big moments, there’s no panic,” Crosby said. “We just kept playing and knew there was a lot of football left.”

Kubiak has been preaching that since April: do not get too high, do not get too low, find a way. Sunday was not pretty. The run game was still a grind until Washington broke one. Two two-point tries failed.

Jack Bech left with a fractured forearm. Guard Jackson Powers-Johnson left with a groin injury. The Raiders still scored when the short fields arrived, and they still closed.

“Wasn’t pretty, but they found a way to win,” Kubiak said. “They believe in each other. They’re a tight group.”

Shough threw for 255 yards and a career-high four touchdowns, two each to Johnson and Fant, and still walked off the loser because the ball did not stay in Saints hands when the game got late. Chris Olave had nine catches for 107 yards. None of it mattered once the fourth quarter started producing turnovers instead of points.

For a franchise that has spent too many autumns treating a double-digit hole as a verdict, Sunday looked different. Down 11 in the third, in a building that was loud and sure of itself, this group did not fold.

Cousins has nine touchdown passes in three games. Bowers is back. The defense is taking the ball away in the moments that used to belong to the other sideline. Kubiak’s team is 3-0.

The unbeaten Chiefs come to Las Vegas next. Three games do not make a season. Anyone who has covered this team through the lean years knows that.

But a Raiders team that no longer feels finished when it falls behind by 10 is not the team that has been walking out of these buildings for the better part of two decades.

For now, that is enough.