The Houston Texans and Las Vegas Raiders are set to do battle Thursday night from Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. The last time the two met, Houston squeaked out a 23-21 victory courtesy of a clutch connection late in the fourth quarter between quarterback C.J. Stroud and wide receiver Nico Collins.
Ahead of their 2026 preseason battle, Just Blog Baby Site Expert Levi Dombro joined Toro Times (via the We Want Houston Podcast yesterday afternoon) to help preview the contest and provide the Raiders fanbase with answers to very pressing questions that the organization is facing at the moment.
From the starting quarterback quandary involving Fernando Mendoza and Kirk Cousins, to the electric pairing of running backs Ashton Jeanty and Mike Washington Jr., we discussed plenty for Raiders fans to digest with less than four weeks left until the regular season.
Q1 - Clayton Anderson: Do you think there's a pathway for Fernando Mendoza to change the Raiders plan of wanting Kirk Cousins as the starting quarterback in week one?
Levi Dombro: There's certainly a path. There's a lot of obstacles in that path right now. But, what I think we're seeing is it might not be long until Mendoza comes in. I mean, there was a lot of talk about him sitting the whole year, him coming in after our week thirteen bye.
And, if he keeps playing like he did you know, on Thursday, it's gonna be hard to keep him off the field, especially because I don't I don't think Kirk Cousins is a bad quarterback. I don't have a ton of faith in the fact that he's not going to have a multi-interception game.
And we're, you know, we have this brutal schedule to start the year. And it, I mean, we're going to have a game where we probably lose by two scores. And so, you know, the noise that's going to be sort of, you know, blaring out of the fan base and and potentially in the building is going to be pretty, pretty big if, if Cousins struggles at all.
And so I'm really interested to see how they do in joint practices this week, both of them against the Texans, because that's such a good measuring stick for us.
So yeah, I mean he's definitely challenging. They should be rotating him in more with the first team, in my opinion. But, I mean we'll see sort of how that goes this week. But yeah, he's definitely making the the equation a little more difficult here for for them to start Cousins.
Q2 - CA: How do you feel about the potential of your young, exciting running back tandem in Ashton Jeanty and Mike Washington Jr?
LD: Yeah, I mean it was it was hard not to be excited about Jeanty last year and you know again different different situation with him coming in, but hard not to be excited about like how Washington complements Jeanty as well. You know, Jeanty doesn't really have like top end breakaway speed. You know, he's more of a guy that's gonna, you know, juke you and and get eight to ten yards.
He'll obviously bust some like you know, big plays, but Washington just has that home run hitting speed.
And he's a big dude that can be a bruiser, you know, in short yarded situations too. And, so both of them can can be good in the pass game. You know, they can both sort of, you know, come off blocks, read you know, and bounce it outside. It's it's really exciting.
Q3 - CA: Do you think the failed trade of defensive end Maxx Crosby has the potential to be a distraction in any way during the season?
LD: I mean, bit just because of the timing of it, I don't it's not really an issue anymore. I mean, it seems like they've sorta let bygones be bygones and, you know, they've had some real conversations. Crosby's talked about it on his podcast, like, you know, he respected the way the Raiders did it.
And, he did ultimately, you know, say that he wanted out, and so it's hard for him to be too upset with the organization for granting him that wish and sending him to a pretty good location in Baltimore there. but yeah, I don't think that we're completely out of the woods.
I mean, we start struggling again, which I mean, geez, our our first seven, eight weeks, seven in particular, are pretty brutal. And, so if we're two and five and there's some team that really wants them and is willing to pay a high price, I mean, still early stages of the rebuild. I don't think that it's impossible to think that he could get traded again. but you know, for the time being, he's handling it well.
He's been, you know, sort of all out of practice back to back to being Max Crosby. The guys are following him, he's leading.
It's not an issue right now. It could sort of come up again. I know Jerry Jones started up doing what Jerry Jones does at at the beginning of training camp, but I really don't I don't see any way that he would get traded or it'd be a real conversation until near the deadline.
Q4 - CA: What are the keys to victory for the Raiders on Thursday against the Texans?
LD: First thing that comes to mind is being able to run the ball. I mean, I worry a little bit about both Kirk Cousins and a young Fernando Mendoza throwing into that secondary and trying, you know, too hard to push the ball up the field. There's a bunch of ball hawks back there and seemingly every group.
I mean, Kamari Ramsey, it's like, you know, you guys are just bottomless, you know, playmakers back there. So really want to see the run game get going so that we don't have to throw the ball a ton. the other one would be yeah,
Secondary play needs to improve. You know, we can't just give up you know, yards on every single time the quarterback drops back. I mean, our defensive line wasn't getting pressure. Our our cornerbacks weren't covering well. So it was just sort of a disjointed effort. and then cleaning up the penalties.
I mean, we had seven penalties in the first half. We kicked a ball out of bounds short of the landing zone, gave him the ball at the 40. I mean, you know, we didn't win, do the little things and like, you know, sort of win the the time of possession battle or the penalty battle or the
field position battle, like just a lot of things like that. First time head coach in his first game is, you know, it was a little bit a tough sledding for a few things like that. So that's gonna be huge for us, getting into that win column then.
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