The Raiders are 3-0 and the scoreboard says everything is fine. The rest of the numbers say Las Vegas is a passing team wearing a running team's jersey.
The Raiders beat the Saints 35-27 on Sunday because Kirk Cousins went 22 of 33 for 248 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, a 119.3 rating, and because Brock Bowers caught 10 of his 13 targets for 116 yards and a score. That's the win. The part of this team that's supposed to be the identity, the ground game, produced 56 yards on 19 carries from Ashton Jeanty. That's 2.9 a carry, with a long of 12. Jeanty added three catches for 37 yards, which is the tell: the back who was supposed to take pressure off Cousins is working as another receiver instead.
Mike Washington Jr. is the counterargument, and it isn't a good one. Five carries, 54 yards, a touchdown, a 36-yard run. Five carries is a change of pace, not a plan.
So the Raiders asked Cousins to throw it 33 times, and he answered. Tre Tucker caught four for 43. Michael Mayer caught three for 32 and a touchdown, and Cody White turned his only catch into a four-yard score. Cousins took three sacks for 21 yards and fumbled once without losing it. When the run game stalls and the quarterback covers for it, that's a win. When it happens every week, it's a dependency.
The Saints are 1-2 and their own leaderboard says it back. Tyler Shough shows up under passing and rushing. Travis Etienne Jr., Alvin Kamara and Kendre Miller all show up as rushing leaders. Nobody separated. Shough's interception went to Hezekiah Masses, who returned it 35 yards and added six tackles and four solo stops.
The last two minutes were the whole afternoon in miniature. AJ Cole's 40-yard punt pinned New Orleans at its own 20 with 1:44 left. At 1:02, Shough hit Juwan Johnson for a yard, Nakobe Dean knocked the ball out, and Eric Stokes recovered it at the New Orleans 35. That ended it.
Here's the stance. Three-and-oh is real, and Cousins earned it. But a team that wins 35-27 while its lead back averages 2.9 is a team riding a 33-attempt quarterback who took three sacks, and that works against a Saints defense that couldn't take Bowers away. It stops working the first Sunday Cousins puts two of those throws in the wrong hands, and nothing in this run game suggests the Raiders have another way to win. The undefeated record is a passing-game record.
