The Dolphins picked up their first win of the 2026 season against the Jets at MetLife Stadium in Week 7 and the Raiders found it to be a hospitable place to play in Week 8.
Kirk Cousins threw three touchdowns and ran for another as the Raiders ended their four-game losing streak with a 38-33 win over the Jets. The victory bumps their record to 4-4 ahead of a Week 9 trip to face the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.
Cousins’s third touchdown pass of the day went to Jalen Nailor with 11:33 left to play in the game and it put the Raiders up 35-30 after they trailed by nine points at halftime. They allowed the Jets to drive the ball to their 13, but their defense was able to come up with a stop that led to Jason Sanders’s fourth field goal of the day. Raiders running back Mike Washington ran for one first down and the Jets used all their timeouts before a Cousins sneak on third down gave them another one at the two minute warning.
The Jets were able to stop the Raiders on the next third down and Matt Gay hit a 53-yard field goal with 27 seconds left to play. The Jets got the ball back and a penalty on a Garrett Wilson catch got them into Raiders territory, but Smith chucked one into the end zone from the 35-yard-line and it was picked off by Jeremy Chinn to the end the game.
Sanders’s first two kicks also came on Jets drives that got the ball into the red zone and the failure to score touchdowns haunted the Jets a day after Halloween. They churned up 424 yards and scored on their first six possessions, but settling for field goals and a defense that lived down to Ashton Jeanty’s slam of them got them beat on Sunday.
Jeanty was little more than a third-down back for the Raiders, but he did have a 45-yard catch to set up one touchdown. Washington ran 25 times for 83 yards and the Brock Bowers/Michael Mayer tight end combo had 12 catches for 145 yards. Two of Bowers’s catches went for touchdowns and Cousins was 19-of-26 for 247 yards on the afternoon.
The Raiders scored on six of their nine full possessions and they also got a 95-yard kickoff return from Dylan Laube on their way to the win. The Jets’ defensive shortcomings crushed them on a day when Braelon Allen, Adonai Mitchell, and Garrett Wilson all had big days against an overmatched Raiders defense. There’s a lot to like about the amount of talent on the offensive side of the ball for the Jets, but Aaron Glenn’s defensive acumen is creating no reason to believe he’s the right man for the job.
The Jets fell to 2-6 with the loss and they will be in Kansas City next Sunday.