Marauders

The Raiders enter the season still carrying the identity that came with them from Oakland twice over: the silver and black, the outlaw reputation.

That swagger was built in a different era. The franchise joined the American Football League in 1960 and by 1967 had already beaten the Houston Oilers 40–7 for the league title. The team has worn three different home cities in that time — Oakland, then Los Angeles, then Oakland again — before the move to Las Vegas in 2020 gave it a fourth.

Some of the names from those years still define the place more than any trophy does. Charles Woodson is the one Raiders fans tend to bring up first when asked who the franchise belongs to, a defensive back whose career there is remembered less for statistics than for the sense that he embodied what the silver and black were supposed to stand for. Ken Stabler earned his own kind of permanence simply by being called "the Snake."

The rivalry with the Los Angeles Chargers still carries the weight of 1978, when the "Holy Roller" play settled a game in a way that Chargers fans have never quite forgiven. Kansas City and Denver fill out a rivalry ledger built over six decades in the AFL and AFC West alike.

Allegiant Stadium holds 65,000.