Las Vegas Raiders vs San Francisco 49ers Recap - Preseason Week 3 - 2026

Ten field goals, zero touchdowns, and a Las Vegas preseason that ends with the offense still looking for the end zone

Ten field goals. Zero touchdowns. That is what 62,104 people at Allegiant Stadium got on a Thursday night that ended with the San Francisco 49ers kicking the Las Vegas Raiders to death, 18-12. Eddy Pineiro went 6-for-6 and hit from 59, 51 and 54, the last one with eight seconds on the clock. Matt Gay was 4-for-5 and scored every single point Las Vegas had. The NFL preseason is supposed to answer questions before the games count. This one asked a brand new one: who on this roster is going to get the ball across the goal line?

Game Summary: Las Vegas Raiders vs San Francisco 49ers

First Quarter

Las Vegas took the opening kickoff and did exactly what a first-team offense is supposed to do in a preseason finale, which is stay on the field. Twelve plays, 46 yards, 6:18 off the clock. Kirk Cousins was quick and boring in the good way, hitting Brock Bowers for six, Jalen Nailor for seven and Tre Tucker twice for 22. Mike Washington Jr. ripped off runs of eight and four before the drive stalled at the 19 and Gay knocked in a 37-yarder. 3-0.

The 49ers went three-and-out for two yards. Las Vegas came right back with 10 more plays and 45 yards, Washington carrying five times for 33 in that series alone, including an 11-yard shot up the middle. Gay drilled a 53-yarder. 6-0, and the starters walked off having moved the ball 91 yards on two possessions without ever sniffing the end zone. That was the whole night in a nutshell.

Then Fernando Mendoza came in with 56 seconds left and the ball at his own 15, which is a rough first assignment for anybody. Second play, he went deep middle for Nailor and Tatum Bethune jumped it, returning the pick 16 yards to the Las Vegas 22. Kaelon Black ran 14 more to the 8 as the quarter expired.

Second Quarter

San Francisco cashed the takeaway in four snaps and got almost nothing for it. Isaiah Pola-Mao broke up a third-down throw at the 5 and the 49ers settled for a 24-yard Pineiro chip shot. 6-3. That became the pattern for the rest of this high-scoring affair 🙄

Las Vegas answered with the ugliest series of the game: three plays, minus-11 yards, punt. Mendoza got hit, got hit again, and AJ Cole came on to bail out the field position. The 49ers punted, the Raiders punted, and by the six-minute mark this had turned into punting practice.

San Francisco finally strung something together, an 11-play, 78-yard march built almost entirely on the ground. Jordan Watkins went 19 on an end around, Adrian Martinez found Jordan James for 20, and James later broke off 17 down to the 9. Then it died at the 6, and Pineiro kicked another one. 6-6.

Las Vegas had 1:38 and used every tick of it. Deven Thompkins brought the kickoff back 26 yards, Mendoza hit Ian Thomas and Brandon Johnson to cross midfield, and a 19-yard pass interference call on Siran Neal put the ball at the 27. Gay hammered a 45-yarder as the clock hit triple zero. 9-6 Raiders at the break. Six kicks in, no touchdowns.

Third Quarter

The third quarter is where Las Vegas needed a touchdown and instead produced the jankiest drive imaginable: 15 plays, 51 yards, 7:40 off the clock, no points. Dare Ogunbowale carried six times inside it for 19 yards, Mendoza scrambled twice for nine more, and Roman Hemby caught passes of six and 13 to keep moving the sticks. Then two straight incompletions with the Niners’ Jaden Dugger living in the pocket, and Matt Gay’s 54-yard try sailed wide left. Seven and a half minutes of possession, nothing to show for it.

San Francisco took over at its own 44 and did the same thing in reverse. Martinez hit Watkins for 19, then 19 more, and Watkins added a six-yard run that put the ball at the Las Vegas 14. Hayden Rucci actually caught a nine-yard touchdown at 1:31, and it came off the board on a low block by James. Then a false start. Then another false start. Ten plays turned into 26 yards, and Pineiro punched in a 48-yarder with 28 seconds left. 9-9. This game is officially terrible at this point.

The bigger loss came two plays before that kick. Keyron Crawford went down with an ankle injury, got helped up, and left on a cart. The third-round rookie had been one of the better stories of this preseason, and cut weekend is a bad time to be riding off the field.

Fourth Quarter

Klint Kubiak spent the night watching his defense hold up and watching his offense hand the game back. San Francisco opened the quarter with a 10-play, 40-yard possession built on catches by KhaDarel Hodge and Rucci plus three straight Khalil Herbert runs, then stalled at the Las Vegas 40. Eddy Pineiro walked out and hit a 59-yarder. That is not a preseason kick. It put the 49ers up 12-9 for their first lead.

Las Vegas answered fast, which was the one encouraging sequence. Hemby returned the kickoff 27 yards, Aidan O’Connell hit Shedrick Jackson for 19, Neal tacked on 15 more for unnecessary roughness, and Gay tied it from 48. 12-12 with 7:38 to play.

Then Herbert and the 49ers took the game. Sixteen yards up the middle, seven more on the next snap, and a Watkins 21-yard catch that flipped the field. Herbert added an 11-yard reception to keep it alive. Pineiro from 51. 15-12 with 1:51 left.

The Raiders got one first down out of the two-minute drill. O’Connell threw two incompletions, scrambled to his own 37 on fourth down and came up short with 1:12 left. San Francisco ran it three times, Las Vegas burned all three timeouts, and Pineiro finished 6-for-6 with a 54-yarder at 0:08. 18-12. Ten field goals, no touchdowns, and a kicking clinic nobody asked for.

Bottom Line

The defense was the best part of this, and it is not close. San Francisco went 4-of-15 on third down and 0-for-3 in the red zone, and Las Vegas finished the preseason holding opponents to 162.7 passing yards per game, 13th fewest in the league. Brandon Cleveland, a seventh-round rookie, tied for the team lead with five tackles and put up two tackles for loss. Patrick Johnson led all Raiders defenders with four tackles for loss this preseason, tied for the most in the NFL. Greedy Vance finished with 16 total tackles, the second most by any defensive back in football. That is three roster decisions that just got harder in the right way.

The offense is the problem, and Kubiak said it out loud. Las Vegas ran 65 plays for 251 yards, averaged 3.9 per play, went 0-for-1 in the red zone, and turned four separate trips inside the San Francisco 40 into three field goals and a miss. Ashton Jeanty did not play with an ankle injury, and Maxx Crosby sat as well, so this was never going to be the finished product. It still has to be better than this.

Fernando Mendoza’s night is going to get chewed on all weekend, and some of that is fair. He was 7-of-14 for 57 yards, took two sacks for 20 yards, and threw the only turnover of the game. Most of it came behind a patchwork line with backup skill players. Cousins, meanwhile, went 8-of-11 for 51 and finished the preseason 13-of-17 for 101 yards with a touchdown and a 110.2 passer rating, the third-best preseason rating by a Raiders quarterback since 2017. That competition is settled for Week 1, and everybody in the building knows it.

The special teams are legitimately good. Cole averaged 56.7 yards on three punts with a long of 63, dropped one inside the 20, and finished the preseason averaging 54.8 yards per punt, the best mark in the NFL. Thompkins led the league with 198 kickoff return yards and a 28.3 average. Washington closed the preseason with 168 yards on 23 carries, a 7.3 average that ranks second among running backs in a single preseason since 2017. The Raiders’ 5.1 yards per rush as a team is currently the best preseason mark in the league.

Cuts to 53 are due Sunday, August 30. Then Miami comes to Allegiant Stadium on September 13, and the field goals stop being a fun story.

Post-Game

“We didn’t score,” Kubiak said. “Receivers, running backs, tight ends, all around, we got to find ways to get balls in the end zone.”

On his rookie quarterback, the head coach was blunt about what the calendar takes away. “(Mendoza) needs another three preseason games, and all those rookies do,” Kubiak said. “Now that the season is starting, the practice reps get smaller and that’s just life.”

Mendoza did not hide from any of it. “It’s the NFL, there are monsters on the other side of the ball and you need to get the ball out quick,” he said. “It teaches you, you need to play on time, and there’s less margin for error.” He added that “there is a big jump going from college to the NFL, in speed, in so many different aspects.”

Patrick Johnson, playing for a roster spot, kept it simple. “I know my confidence is there,” he said, “I know I can do it.”

TOP PERFORMERS

TEAM STATS

Field Goals 4-5 | Red Zone 0-1 | Third Down 6-14 | Turnovers 1 | Attendance 62,104

Next up: Las Vegas Raiders vs Miami Dolphins, Sunday, September 13, 2026, 1:25 p.m. PT, Allegiant Stadium, FOX

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