Bills, Raiders a battle between two keen offensive-minded head coaches

Joe Brady and Klint Kubiak represent a changing of the guard for the NFL.

The Buffalo Bills’ and Las Vegas Raiders’ head coaches, respectively, are a pair of hotshot offensive play callers who ascended to the lead role of their franchises this past offseason. And through five games of the 2026 campaign, the neither team regrets the decision to go with offensive coordinators-turned-first-time lead men.

The ascension of Brady, the 37-year-old who served as Buffalo’s offensive coordinator last season, appeared inevitable after the Bills dismissed then-head coach Sean McDermott in January following the team’s 33-30 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Division Round of the playoffs last season.

Brady has picked up where he left off as he remains the play caller and head coach title as Buffalo (4-1 overall) is the top-ranked scoring offense (164 total points) and fourth-highest yards gained (1,981) in the NFL so far. The Bills red zone offense is the sixth-best with 15 touchdowns on 21 trips in the area between the opponent’s 20-yard line and end zone (a 71.4 percent success rate).

Last season, Brady was the architect of Bills’ fourth-best scoring (481) and yards gained (6,397) offense. The red zone performance was impressive too in 2025 as Buffalo scored 43 touchdowns on 65 visits (66.2 percent success rate).

Flipping to Kubiak, the 39-year-old has breathed much-needed life into an anemic Raiders offense that ranked dead last in points scored and yards gained in 2025 under a different regime. While many want to forget the abysmal 2025 campaign, the Silver & Black produced just 241 total points and 4,168 total yards which ranked 32nd out of the 32 teams in the league.

Currently, Las Vegas (3-2) sits with the eighth-highest scoring offense (132) and 14th-most yards gained (1,678) through five games with Kubiak at the helm and with the play sheet, providing tangible data on why minority owner Tom Brady, general manager John Spytek, and the rest of the Raiders’ decision makers were deliberate and patient to interview and eventually hire Kubiak.

There’s areas of opportunity for the Raiders head coach, however, such as a ground game that’s been neutralized and is in the bottom run of the league rankings (28th in yards gained at 402; 27th in rushing touchdowns at just two). Another blemish for Kubiak’s offense is red zone performance as the team has scored just 10 touchdowns on 18 visits (55.6 percent success rate) which ranks 20th in the NFL.

That noted, Kubiak’s system has super veteran Kirk Cousins on-point as Raiders quarterback and is using elite tight end Brock Bowers all over the field.

The synergy Kubiak has in Las Vegas is clearly lacking from his former team, the Seattle Seahawks (3-3). The Raiders head coach was Mike Macdonald’s offensive coordinator in Seattle and the Seahawks offense has struggled creating that rhythm Kubiak had as he orchestrated the third-best scoring offense (483) and eighth-best yards gained (5,973) for the 2025 Super Bowl champions.

The Week 6 clash between the Bills and Raiders inside Allegiant Stadium features two young coaches in their respective AFC divisions (East for Buffalo, West for Las Vegas). And if both can continue their impressive debut seasons and beyond, are the changing of the guard from older and established coaches.

But first comes Sunday’s matchup where the Raiders are looking to rebound to keep pace in the AFC West while the Bills are eager to trample another opponent to remain in the AFC East lead.

Kubiak heaped praise on Buffalo during his media sessions this week and he made it clear his offense must stay on the field and score points against the high-powered Bills.

“Yeah, well, you’ve got to get first downs to stay on the field. So, going three and out and punting the ball back is not the way to go,” Kubiak said. “So, you’ve got to sustain drives. A big part of sustaining drives is not being one-dimensional. So, that’s a part of our team that we got to improve.”

Keeping quarterback Josh Allen on the sideline as much as they can will help Las Vegas, especially as the Raiders defense has struggled mightily in the red zone (14 touchdowns allowed on 18 visits; 28th in the league). And Brady is well aware of the Silver & Black’s penchant to create turnovers — even though the Raiders have only one takeaway the last two weeks after forcing nine in the first three games of the season.

Ball security is a must for Buffalo as running back James Cook and Allen have four fumbles, apiece.

“Right now, we’re putting the ball in harm’s way, and we know that’s the way that we lose football games is we turn the ball over,” Brady said. “James has put the ball on the ground. He’s doing so many good things running the football, and I don’t want to lose sight of how great he is running the ball right now, but we’re putting the ball on the ground, and it’s negating all the positive.

“And I have all the confidence in him. That’s why I put him right back out there. But obviously at some point there has to be consequences when we’re putting negative stuff out there. James knows. It’s important to him, but that can’t happen, and it’s going to cost us football games, and it almost cost us that one. So, it’s got to improve, or the carries are going to decrease.”

While both Kubiak and Brady are younger head coaches, the inherent roster differences between the Raiders and Bills is quite the advantage for the Bills. There’s just simply more talent on Brady’s roster than Kubiak’s due, in large part, to Buffalo’s sustained success of seven-straight winning seasons from 2019-25.

Las Vegas has only one season in Sin City where they were above .500 — a 10-7 record in 2021, in comparison.

That said, stranger things have happened and it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Las Vegas to get a much-needed victory at home.

Quotes of Note

“Yeah, that’s the best tool. You know, the guys are visual. You can only tell them so much. If you show them, it definitely helps get your point across. That’s definitely something that I like to do, a lot of coaches on our staff like to do. But you got to make the correction somehow, someway. So, whatever hits the player’s brain the fastest you got to use that technique.”

—Las Vegas Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak on how game film from last Sunday’s loss helps his team.

“Benefits? I don’t know if there are benefits from getting your butt whooped, but you got to know yourself in your area, your strengths and your weaknesses on defense.”

—Las Vegas Raiders defensive coordinator Rob Leonard when asked if last Sunday’s game tape benefits the team.