The Las Vegas Raiders are on yet another streak. After starting the season with three consecutive wins against three bad teams, the Raiders have lost two straight games to two of the league's top teams: the Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots.
Las Vegas has been on the road plenty, as Week 5 was their third road game in the last four weeks. They now have two consecutive home games against two of the league's best, starting with the Buffalo Bills this Sunday.
Back To Work
The past two weeks have made it clear where the Raiders stand among the league's best, just as the season's first three weeks confirmed that they're no longer the worst team in the league after finishing last season with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. Las Vegas is somewhere in the middle.
The next month of the season will clarify where Las Vegas falls between the league's best and worst. In the meantime, Klint Kubiak's Raiders have handled their two losses much like their wins, which is a sign of progress inside the locker room.
The team has had an even temperament through the season's first five games. They now turn their attention to a tough Bills team. Both Buffalo and Las Vegas are coming off recent losses to the Patriots and wins over the Los Angeles Chargers. Still, both teams are at very different points.
Las Vegas is working through the first half of the season with new parts across the board. The team's potential and limitations have shown themselves over five weeks. The next few weeks will test the team's ability to battle through extended adversity, as they face a challenging schedule.
Raiders' Reality
Few teams, other than the Chargers, have a four-game stretch as tough as the one the Raiders are working their way through. Yet Kubiak's first year was always going to be about him and his coaching staff working through the remnants of what was arguably the worst roster in the league last season.
The complete rebuild the Raiders began by hiring Kubiak is going through the expected learning curve of a first-year coaching staff with a revamped, but not fully rebuilt roster. The Raiders showed their progress in the first three weeks and where they still needed to improve in the last two.
The Raiders got back to work on Wednesday as they look to shake off the past two weeks and steal one of their next two games before heading to the East Coast to face the New York Jets. Despite two losses, Las Vegas is in position for a strong season, assuming they get back on track.
That will be easier said than done, but not impossible. A productive week of work, along with some changes to the game plan in all three phases, would go a long way. Yet a realistic understanding of where the roster currently stands would help, even after a productive offseason.
The Raiders' coaching staff must make a few tweaks, as the Bills do many things on both sides of the ball that Las Vegas struggles with. Offensively, the Raiders need to run the ball better and sustain drives more consistently. Defensively, Las Vegas' pass rush must rediscover itself.
The past two weeks have been bad matchups for the Raiders, exposing roster holes and deficiencies that most already knew existed. There really have not been any surprises over the past two weeks, other than how quickly their loss to the Patriots got out of hand.
The Raiders' return to Allegiant Stadium might be just what they need to get back on track. Yet the game's location doesn't change the uphill battles they will face at home over the next two weeks. On paper, the Raiders face a roster on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Kubiak and his coaching staff will have to find the right buttons to press throughout the rest of the week, as the Raiders cannot afford another performance like the one they had against the Patriots.
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