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It was a roller coaster 2025 NFL season for Las Vegas Raiders<\/a>\u2018 Brock Bowers, who dealt with a knee injury from Week 1. The injury would linger throughout the campaign as the Silver and Black would eventually shut him down. <\/p>\n Despite an injury-plagued 2025 season, Brock Bowers finished with a 78.8 overall PFF grade<\/a>, ranking sixth among 37 qualified tight ends. His receiving grade of 82.2 placed him fifth in that group.<\/p>\n Bowers caught 64 passes on 83 targets for 680 yards and seven touchdowns, averaging 10.6 yards per reception. Moreover, he gained 296 yards after the catch and had three drops on the season.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, the Raiders are hoping that with an improved offensive line and quarterback play, along with Bowers staying healthy, the team can get an even better version of the young tight end. <\/p>\n One QB who could throw to Bowers next season is Kirk Cousins. In a video published on the Raiders\u2019 YouTube channel on April 6<\/a>, Cousins didn\u2019t hold back his thoughts on the tight end. <\/p>\n \u201cI think he may be the best tight end in football,\u201d Cousins said. \u201cHopefully, we can make that a reality this fall, but we\u2019ve got to keep him healthy, just like some of the other great players on this team.\u201d<\/p>\n Kirk Cousins Gets Blunt About Brock Bowers<\/p>\n Moreover, Cousins went into specifics about what makes Bowers a talented tight end and why the veteran QB is eager to start playing with the pass-catcher in the upcoming 2026 season. <\/p>\n \u201cHe gives us the ability to use a lot of different personnel groupings, which can allow us to be very creative with how we attack defenses,\u201d Cousins added. \u201cI\u2019ve always really enjoyed playing with talented tight ends because of the curveball they throw at defenses. <\/p>\n \u201cI expect Brock to be as good of a curveball as I\u2019ve ever played with, and I can\u2019t wait to see how we can use him. Getting on the grass with him and even running routes in the air is going to be exciting to watch a guy like that go to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Raiders Get Realistic Expectations for the 2026<\/p>\n With all the moves that the Raiders have made this offseason, the team\u2019s former QB, Rich Gannon, shared his realistic expectations for Las Vegas in Year 1 under new head coach Klint Kubiak.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you take a step back and look at the division, it\u2019s clear how much ground there is to cover,\u201d\u00a0Gannon said in an April 3 video from the New York Post<\/a>. \u201cYou\u2019ve got Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City, then Bo Nix paired with Sean Payton in Denver, and Jim Harbaugh alongside Justin Herbert with the\u00a0Chargers<\/a>. It makes you realize this isn\u2019t something that\u2019s going to\u00a0be fixed\u00a0overnight.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a sense that Klint Kubiak and the coaching staff understand that, especially while working to develop a young quarterback. It really comes down to doing the small things the right way and building the roster with the right kind of people, players who are fully bought in and committed to winning, not just the lifestyle that comes with it. That kind of mindset has to be the standard in the locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tEduardo Razo<\/a> Eduardo Razo is a sports writer for Heavy.com, covering the NFL, MLB, and college football. He has previously covered the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB for NBC Sports Washington and NBC Sports Bay Area & California, and has freelanced for PSG Talk, covering Paris Saint-Germain. He also worked as an editor at Athlon Sports, focusing on MLB and the NFL. More about Eduardo Razo<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Raiders\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow\/Getty Images) It was a roller coaster 2025 NFL season for Las Vegas Raiders\u2018…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2065],"tags":[7,1744,393,2455,2454,6,525],"class_list":{"0":"post-858334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-las-vegas","10":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","11":"tag-lasvegas","12":"tag-lasvegasraiders","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-raiders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116361938727700048","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}