Close but Not Enough, Again

Las Vegas put together enough offense to beat Buffalo on Sunday. That part is worth noting. The Raiders scored 30 points, moved the ball, and kept it a game into the fourth quarter before falling 33-30. For a team that spent most of 2025 getting blown out — that 10-game losing streak last fall wasn't close losses, it was routs — putting up 30 against a Bills defense is a different kind of result.

The problem, as it has been, was the margin. Three points. One score. Las Vegas went 2-5 in one-score games last season, and the instinct here is to file Sunday alongside that history. The Raiders had chances and didn't convert them when it mattered most. That's the pattern Klint Kubiak's staff has been trying to break, and it didn't break Sunday.

The angle about Buffalo's discipline is real — penalty trouble kept Las Vegas in the game longer than it might have been otherwise — but that's a Bills story, not a Raiders one. What the Raiders can take from this is that the offense functioned. Whether that holds next week is the question worth watching.