Two weeks into the Klint Kubiak era, the Raiders are 2-0 for the first time since 2021, and almost nothing about how they got here has been simple. They out-schemed Miami in Week 1 without lighting up a stat sheet. They out-lasted the Chargers in Week 2 despite getting outgained, averaging two yards a carry, and watching Kirk Cousins get hit ten times. Twice now, this team has found the answer when its first plan stopped working.

Sunday in New Orleans is where that pattern gets its real test.

The Saints are 1-1, not 2-0 - a split that includes a 24-17 win over Baltimore in which their offense looked every bit as good as their record doesn't suggest. And yet Las Vegas is a three-point underdog going into the Caesars Superdome. That gap between the record and the respect is the whole story of this game, and it's worth sitting with for a minute before we get into matchups.

Vegas Doesn't Believe In 2-0 - Yet

Sportsbooks have New Orleans favored by 3 (-112 on the spread), with the Saints priced at -172 on the moneyline against the Raiders' +144, and the total sitting at a modest 43.5. Translation: the market thinks Las Vegas's start has been more opportunistic than real, and it's not just Vegas the sportsbook that feels that way - I ranked the Raiders ninth in our first power rankings of the season because of how mature they have been looking without their number 1 weapon, Brock Bowers. New Orleans was a 2-pt conversion away from where the Raiders are today.

Here's the twist that should make Raiders fans feel better than the line suggests: Las Vegas is unbeaten against the spread this season, including as a 3-plus-point underdog already this year, and New Orleans is unbeaten against the spread too. Something has to give. Neither team's games have gone over the total yet, which tells you plenty about the kind of football both sides are playing right now - controlled, situational, allergic to chaos. That's exactly the version of the Raiders that's 2-0.

The Toughest Puzzle Rob Leonard Has Faced Yet

Everything Las Vegas has hung its identity on defensively runs through one number: a roughly 50 percent quarterback pressure rate through two games, the best mark in the NFL, generated almost entirely without blitzing. We broke down exactly how that works after the Chargers game - seven defenders making the quarterback think, four defenders making him hurry, and the whole formula depends on an opponent who has to work through real coverage while the pocket collapses around him.

Justin Herbert is talented but occasionally chaotic under that kind of pressure. Tyler Shough is a different problem entirely.

Through two games, Shough leads the entire NFL in passing yards with 662, completing 68.9 percent of his throws, and New Orleans owns the league's second-ranked passing offense at 305.5 yards per game. That's not empty volume from a team playing from behind - that's rhythm, timing and a quarterback who isn't rattled easily. Chris Olave has been the primary beneficiary, and we'll get to him. But the bigger question for Rob Leonard's defense is whether a pressure package built to rattle an inconsistent quarterback still works against one who's playing with this much poise. Klint Kubiak was blunt about it this week: "This offense is very explosive, very well-coached... we're going to have our work cut out for us on Sunday." That's not coach-speak. Through two weeks, it's the most dangerous passing attack the Raiders have seen.

Chris Olave and the Return of the Masses Question

If there's one storyline that ties this whole game together, it's this one.

A few days ago, I introduced Hezekiah "Zeke" Masses to Raiders fans who'd never heard the name - a fifth-round rookie cornerback forced into his first NFL start by Darien Porter's foot injury, who responded by intercepting Justin Herbert twice, allowing just two catches for 16 yards on six targets across 26 coverage snaps, and becoming the first Raiders rookie cornerback with multiple interceptions in a game since Henry Williams, nearly five decades ago. It was, in the most literal sense, one hell of an introduction - one that earned him AFC Defensive player of the week.

But we were careful to add a caveat in that piece: NFL offenses now have film on Masses. Future opponents will study his tendencies, test his technique, and force him to prove Week 2 was more than one exceptional afternoon. Chris Olave is about as difficult a version of that test as exists in September. He's caught 18 passes for 268 yards and a touchdown through two games - trailing only Amon-Ra St. Brown in receptions leaguewide. Herbert targeted Masses because he had no better option and Masses happened to be the rookie. Shough will target whoever Olave is matched up against because Olave wins matchups on his own merit. That's a fundamentally different kind of pressure than the one Masses passed two weeks ago.

There's a second layer to this that hasn't gotten enough attention: Masses isn't the only rookie defensive back who broke out in Week 1. Treydan Stukes intercepted a pass against Miami and posted an 89.6 PFF grade in his own right. Now, per this week's injury report, Stukes is dealing with a concussion and did not practice Wednesday or Thursday, while Porter (foot) has progressed all the way to full participation. If Stukes can't go, Las Vegas could be leaning on Masses and a returning Porter to slow down the league's second-best passing offense - which is either the ultimate confirmation that this secondary's early returns were real, or the exact scenario where a two-week sample size gets exposed.

Is Brock Bowers Finally Back?

Buried in Thursday's injury report is the single most important line for this offense going forward: Brock Bowers, dealing with a knee issue, was a limited practice participant on both Wednesday and Thursday. That's the most encouraging update on his status since before the season opener.

Bowers has missed the first two games entirely. Las Vegas has scored plenty without him - six total touchdowns from Cousins, Tre Tucker's emergence as a legitimate vertical threat, Cody White's improbable two-touchdown afternoon against the Chargers - but every one of those explosive plays has come from a passing game working without arguably its most talented weapon. If Bowers is active Sunday, even in a limited role, it gives Kubiak a real answer over the middle of the field against a Saints defense that's going to be selling out to slow down Tucker on the perimeter. If he's not, this offense will have navigated three games on its most difficult remaining test yet without him, which says something about the players filling in - and something concerning about how thin the margin still is.

The Old Question Nobody's Answered: This Offensive Line

Here's the uncomfortable thread running underneath the 2-0 record. In Week 1, the Raiders' offensive line allowed zero sacks and just two quarterback hits while clearing room for 102 rushing yards from Ashton Jeanty. It was, by a wide margin, the best version of this group we've seen. One week later, that same group allowed ten quarterback hits, two sacks, and Jeanty managed only 21 carries for 48 yards against the Chargers - a 2.3 yards-per-carry night that dragged the whole rushing attack down to two yards a carry as a team. League-wide, the Raiders currently rank 19th in total offense and 23rd in rushing offense despite the 2-0 record, which is exactly the kind of quiet warning sign that doesn't show up until it costs you a game.

I wrote before the season that Ashton Jeanty's second-year test would be about proving Week 1's flashes weren't a product of a shaky offense around him - an offense that, at the time, was still finding its identity up front. Two games in, that question hasn't gone away; it's just alternated weeks. And it connects directly to the other subplot Raiders fans have spent all offseason tracking: Kubiak's decision to make Fernando Mendoza earn the starting job behind Kirk Cousins rather than hand it to him. Cousins has answered that challenge about as well as anyone could have asked through two games - six total touchdowns, a 2-0 record, timing and anticipation over pure arm strength. But it's not a coincidence that the loudest noise around that quarterback competition has gone quiet precisely while the offensive line has had its best stretch of the season. If Sunday looks more like the Chargers game up front than the Dolphins game, that conversation doesn't stay quiet for long.

The Small Subplot Worth Knowing

Here's a fun one buried in the notes: Saints kicker Daniel Carlson spent eight seasons in Las Vegas before this offseason and will face his former team for the first time all year on Sunday. It won't decide the game. It's exactly the kind of detail that makes it a better one to watch.

Three Keys to a 3-0 Start

Win early down-and-distance on offense. The Raiders' passing game has been at its best on early downs and manageable situations - the moment Cousins is regularly facing third-and-9, Kubiak loses the misdirection and play-action that's carried this offense through two weeks, and this defense gets to stop respecting the run entirely.

Make Olave work for it without abandoning the pressure identity. If Leonard has to devote extra safety help to Olave, that's fewer resources rushing Crosby's lane and fewer bodies disguising where the pressure comes from. The best version of this defense finds a way to do both at once - pressure up front, and a corner who makes Olave earn every catch instead of getting it clean.

Survive the secondary shuffle. Whether that's Masses drawing the Olave assignment, Porter easing back in off a foot injury, or Stukes being a late scratch, Las Vegas needs whoever's on the field to replicate what its top two corners have already shown twice this season: rookies who don't just survive being tested, but make the offense pay for testing them.

Prediction

New Orleans is the better-coached favorite on paper, playing an efficient, low-mistake style that doesn't hand a defense easy turnovers the way Herbert occasionally does. If the Raiders' offensive line shows up like it did against the Chargers instead of like it did against Miami, this is a genuinely losable road game against a team that deserves to be favored.

But everything about this Raiders team through two weeks says it finds an answer when the first plan doesn't work. The pressure package that's rattled two straight quarterbacks doesn't need to fully shut down Shough - it just needs to make one or two of his 30-something dropbacks uncomfortable enough to produce the same kind of opportunistic turnover this defense has created in both games so far. Give Cousins even one home-run shot to Tucker or a healthy Bowers working the middle of the field, and this offense has shown twice now that it only needs a handful of explosive plays to make an entire game plan work.

Prediction: Raiders 23, Saints 20. Las Vegas covers as the underdog, the total sneaks in just under 43.5, and the pattern holds one more week - outgained, outcoached in stretches, and still standing at 3-0 when it's over.

The Real Question Heading Into Sunday

A few days ago, an undefeated Raiders team got ranked ninth in my first power rankings of the season, behind a Rams team with a loss, because a perfect record built on unresolved problems isn't the same thing as being a genuinely good football team yet. New Orleans, at 1-1 and three-point favorites in their own building, is the best chance this team has had yet to answer that question with something other than "wait and see."

Is this Raiders team good enough to be favored on the road against a legitimate opponent, or is it still living off two performances that needed exactly the right bounces to turn into wins? We'll find out Sunday at 1:25 PM Pacific. Drop your own prediction in the comments - and if you think the Raiders are a better football team than a three-point underdog line suggests, make the case.