Coming off a bounce-back win in Buffalo, the Patriots will try to build on the momentum when they return home to face the Las Vegas Raiders at Gillette Stadium on Sunday.

New England's road victory over the Bills accomplished two things for head coach Mike Vrabel. First, it serves as a "proof of concept" win where Patriots players bought into the game plan, executed at a high level, and beat a playoff-caliber opponent in their new building. Although a large portion of the roster is holdovers from last year's AFC Champions, there's still a level of validation in a new season when the hard work during the week pays off with a win that should earn buy-in for Vrabel and his coaching staff.

Last week's win in Buffalo was also critical for Patriots QB Drake Maye, who began the season in a three-game slump, ranking 24th among 28 qualified quarterbacks in EPA per drop-back while leading the NFL in turnovers. Maye still turned the ball over twice vs. the Bills, so that remains a work in progress, but the Pats QB's timing and trust within the offense's structure improved significantly. Maye played with a rhythm that let him deliver passes on time, progress through his reads, and let the scheme ease the burden on the quarterback, leading to fewer mistakes when he was pressed to make big plays.

Although last Sunday's win could be a huge building block, New England must avoid a letdown after a big divisional win against the Raiders. This week, you will probably hear comparisons between last year's Pats and this year's Raiders, who jumpstarted the Klint Kubiak era much like the Patriots did in 2025.

Along with hiring the offensive coordinator from the defending Super Bowl champs as head coach, the Raiders handed out a league-high $235.3 million in guaranteed money in free agency. Vegas used a massive free agency class where they added 11 new starters to raise the talent floor of its roster, with key additions such as C Tyler Linderbaum, linebackers Quay Walker and Nakobe Dean, and others supplementing a core that already included All-Pro TE Brock Bowers, former No. 6 overall pick Ashton Jeanty, and star defender Maxx Crosby.

The Raiders differ from last year's Patriots at quarterback, where a hot start from free-agent addition Kirk Cousins is buying Vegas time to groom No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza. Cousins was signed as the bridge quarterback to Mendoza, similar to when the Pats brought in Jacoby Brissett in Maye's rookie year, but Cousins has exceeded expectations in the first month of the season (10th in EPA, 12th in total QBR).

Until the Raiders start losing games with Cousins, the expectation is that Mendoza will remain on the bench, which means the Patriots will face the 38-year-old veteran on Sunday. Still, after losing a one-score game where they hung with the Chiefs last week, New England needs to avoid a letdown against a Vegas team that has started the season an impressive 3-1.

Let's preview the chess match between the Patriots and Raiders at Gillette Stadium in Week 5.

Offense Key: Prep for the Raiders Pressure Package and Turnover-Producing Defense

After breaking out last week, the Patriots offense will face a Raiders defense that has shown some interesting early-season trends under first-time coordinator Rob Leonard.

Patriots OC Josh McDaniels initially hired Leonard as Vegas's defensive line coach under former DC Patrick Graham. He stayed on staff through four head coaches, with Kubiak retaining him by promoting him from defensive line/run-game coordinator to defensive coordinator this season. Leonard has an interesting background, with ties to Graham, Brian Flores, John Harbaugh, and Pete Carroll.

Under Leonard, Vegas's defense is off to an impressive start, ranking second in total EPA, fourth in pass EPA, and sixth in rush EPA. The Raiders have also forced a league-high nine takeaways through four games, with an NFL-best five forced fumbles and four interceptions. Obviously, New England is tied for the league lead with 10 turnovers in their first four games, so this is a Raiders strength vs. a Patriots weakness.

Although Leonard is coordinating and calling plays, it's hard to ignore the Seattle imprint, even in the Raiders' defensive scheme. Vegas ranks ninth in two-high safety structure rate (67.9%), playing a similar early-down brand of football as the Seahawks, relying on aggressive front mechanics and rotating safeties to hold up against the run while initially presenting offenses with lighter boxes (sixth in rush EPA).

By using slants and stunts on early downs, Vegas shoots gaps and disrupts run-blocking schemes. In the back end, the Raiders most-used coverage is cover-three (37%), where they usually "buzz" a safety down to add an extra hat into the short-zone distribution or run fit. As shown above, Vegas's pick pressures (stunt-blitzes) out of cover three stress protections and force quarterbacks into taking check-downs.

Along with playing cover three, the Raiders will keep their safeties deep in some split-safety zones like quarters (17.8%) and cover six (14.4%). In this clip, Vegas takes away all five eligible receivers by using the quarters "box" to sort through the three receiver-side and the cover-two triangle to cloud over the slot vertical and cover the flat to the two-receiver side, leading to a Herbert sack.

The Raiders approach to run defense and quarters-based zones feels like Kubiak brought the Seahawks core philosophies with him from Seattle. However, Leonard's imprint shows up in how often the Raiders pressure. Vegas calls cover zero (all-out pressure) at the highest rate in the NFL (10.3%). In fact, Vegas is the only defense with a cover-zero rate over 10%. Along with Crosby's 25 quarterback pressures, which are tied for fourth in the NFL, the Raiders rank 12th in team pressure rate this season (37.7%).

For example, Seattle calls this pressure a "glitch" blitz, where the defense puts the running back in a 2-on-1 bind while interior rushers "stab" into the line of scrimmage to get the interior blockers to engage, then "pop" out of the rush into short zones. The back has to take the in-line rusher over the left guard, with the protection sliding out to the rush-linebacker (Walker). But Vegas adds an extra rusher by blitzing the left slot CB, which creates a free runner. Saints QB Tyler Shough tries to throw the go ball at the bottom of the screen against single coverage, but the rush gets home and forces a strip-sack.

On film, the Patriots can borrow a few things that gave the Raiders defense trouble. First, the Chargers and Saints found success running the ball by calling influence traps to get Vegas's aggressive front caught upfield. By inviting them upfield initially, the Raiders DTs feel unblocked, but they get earholed from the side to create running lanes. The Pats run plan vs. the Bills majored in similar short and long trap plays last week.

In the passing game, the Chiefs attacked the Raiders cover zeros with QB Patrick Mahomes completing three deep passes for 138 yards. Kansas City ran a "dash" protection here to move the pocket to the non-arm side with Vegas sending pressure to Mahomes's right. The Chiefs then ran the big post from the backside across the field with the Raiders playing the down without a deep safety, and it's a 41-yard completion to Xavier Worthy.

After the Raiders defense was terrific in the first three weeks, the Chiefs scored 30 points with Mahomes throwing haymakers vs. single coverage. My guess is that Vegas will play less cover zero vs. Maye to keep him in the pocket and put a lid on the deep passing game, especially since their cover zeros are starting to get exposed. But the Patriots need to be ready to face an aggressive Raiders defense on Sunday.

Defense Key: Take Away the 'Breaking' Routes from Raiders QB Kirk Cousins

Turning to the Patriots defense, Cousins is having a career renaissance in a West Coast offense under Kubiak that is notoriously quarterback-friendly.

Kubiak's father, Gary, is an original Shanahan disciple who coordinated the Broncos offense under Mike Shanahan in the 1990s. Klint has diversified the run scheme some compared to pops, so it's not all zone schemes, and the 38-year-old Cousins doesn't move well enough to move the pocket regularly. Still, outside zone, and now duo, which has become the complement to zone-blocking, are Vegas's foundation while the Raiders are running bootlegs on 8.6% of Cousins's drop-backs (12th in the NFL).

The Raiders have gotten Cousins in a groove by using the tree's play-action staples and a rhythm drop-back passing game. For instance, Kubiak is a two-back truther who likes to run zone-lead plays, which are outside zone blocking with the fullback leading through the hole. As a result, he has play-action plays to off lead-actions where he gets the linebackers into the line of scrimmage to hit in-breaking routes at the second level (the motion to create a new No. 1 receiver also helps open the space here for Bowers's route).

In the drop-back game, Cousins also likes to throw "breaking" routes that either break into the middle of the field or break out at the first two levels. Above, Vegas pairs the stick concept (two short outs) with a "Tulane" style play, where Bowers has a short option route. Cousins looks at the stick concept first, possibly to hold the linebackers in the middle of the field, then comes back to Bowers, who separates easily on the angle route for a nice gain.

Cousins has been highly efficient this season, but I'm soft-pedaling a take that this Raiders offense is relatively easy to defend. First, Vegas has not run the ball well despite using the sixth-overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft on Jeanty. The Raiders rank bottom-five in both rush EPA (29th) and rush success rate (30th), so they haven't been a potent rushing attack. As good as the scheme and Bowers are, the Raiders also don't really have a vertical stretch element to their offense outside of speedy wideout Tre Tucker.

Cousins is just 4-of-13 on throws over 20 air yards (30.8%, 22nd). He wants to throw in-breakers and out-breakers at the first two levels, ranking ninth among 29 qualified quarterbacks in EPA on breaking routes (+0.34). However, Cousins is just 21st in pass EPA on all other routes (+0.01). More specifically, Cousins struggles with split-safety zones, which take away slant windows and the flats. According to NextGen Stats, Cousins ranks 25th in EPA against split-safety coverages (-0.23). When he faces single-high safety coverages, Cousins has a league-best +0.46 EPA per play. So, playing split-safety structures seems to be the formula.

Based on that, the Patriots might lean on their "tricky" cover-two zones, which are some of DC Zak Kuhr's best stuff. In this example, the Chiefs drop the nickel over the three-receiver side into the deep part of the field to form cover-two with a post-snap rotation. Cousins tries to throw the out to Bowers, but he throws it right into a "trap" corner with the outside corner falling off the vertical route with safety help over the top.

Kubiak will likely dust off his Super Bowl game plan by using multiple tight-end sets, which the Raiders do at the highest clip in the NFL (61.2%), while testing the Patriots edges in the run game. On both sides of the ball, Kubiak is trying to mimic what he and Mike Macdonald did last year in Seattle. The question for the Raiders is whether they have the personnel to execute those schemes at a high level – we'll see on Sunday.

Key Matchups

RT Morgan Moses vs. Raiders EDGE Maxx Crosby

With the veteran playing through a foot injury, Moses rebounded from a rough outing in Jacksonville with a better performance last week (one hurry, one stuffed run). Well, it won't get any easier vs. Crosby, who is playing like a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Crosby's motor runs hot, he's long and bendy, and he's equally as effective against the run and pass. One would think we'll see plenty of chips and moving pockets away from Crosby on Sunday.

Pats Defense vs. Raiders TE Brock Bowers

It'll be interesting to see how the Patriots game-plan for Bowers after their zones erased Bills TE Dalton Kincaid from the game last week. Bowers is most dangerous on routes breaking into the middle of the field (42.3% of routes), while he mostly plays as a detached slot or wide receiver (only 11 routes in-line). Bowers would be a mismatch vs. any safety in man coverage, so will they put a corner on the star TE? Without a true outside threat, it makes sense for Carlton Davis III or Christian Gonzalez to cover Bowers.

DT Cory Durden vs. Raiders C Tyler Linderbaum

Whenever you play a zone running scheme, the center is a key blocker because he sets the pace and executes the combination blocks that set up cutback lanes, which is why zone-heavy offenses typically have athletic centers. Linderbaum is one of the best centers in football, and it'll be on Durden and company to prevent him from creating rushing lanes inside the Raiders outside zone and duo schemes.

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DISCLAIMER: The views and thoughts expressed in this article are those of the writer and don't necessarily reflect those of the organization. Read Full Disclaimer