NEW ORLEANS — It was cute at first.

The Raiders beat the Dolphins, then the Chargers, and a team that won three games last season suddenly had won its first two this year.

Good for them. Nice little story. Give them some attention while there was still a reason to.

You could almost sense the rest of the country waiting for reality to arrive. The other shoe would drop. The Raiders would go back to being the Raiders, then disappear into the background where they have spent so much of the last three decades.

Sunday, the familiar ending seemed to be writing itself.

The Saints had wrestled away control, the Superdome was roaring, and the Raiders were staring at an 11-point deficit with 5:46 remaining in the third quarter.

The Raiders were back to being the Raiders. After so many collapses and so much hapless football, who could blame anyone for thinking it?

“I just remember in past years, being down 11, it’s kind of like, the game’s over with,” said Raiders wide receiver Tre Tucker.

Except those Raiders never showed up.

“Not for us,” Tucker said.

Business as usual became anything but. The Raiders forced turnovers on the Saints’ final four possessions, scored 19 unanswered points and walked out with a 35-27 victory that keeps challenging what we think we know about them.

Cute no longer covers it.

“You just keep playing,” said quarterback Kirk Cousins.

Simple advice. It carries more weight when the quarterback delivering it can show everyone how.

Cousins is proving he’s more than a bridge to prized young quarterback Fernando Mendoza. There is still life in his arm, wisdom in his decisions and a steadiness that can settle a sideline when a game threatens to unravel.

Sunday, he helped the Raiders turn panic into poise, then poise into winning football.

“Playing through the smoke,” Cousins said. “Which is inevitably what’s going to happen in this league.”

You don’t go into New Orleans, fall behind by double digits in the second half, and take the whole afternoon back without carrying something meaningful out with you.

Something beyond a third victory.

Something that makes you wonder whether a franchise with only two playoff appearances since Rich Gannon quarterbacked it to the Super Bowl in 2002 might finally be building something worth believing in.

And wouldn’t you know it?

Here come the Chiefs.

The archrivals and recent tormentors arrive in Las Vegas next week, just as the Raiders are making it increasingly difficult to dismiss their start as a pleasant September diversion.

That conversation can wait a day.

First, appreciate how they earned it.

On an afternoon when the running game struggled to find traction, rookie Mike Washington Jr. broke loose for a 36-yard touchdown that cut the deficit to 27-22.

One opening. One burst. A reason to believe again.

“A huge run,” said Cousins.

Then Malcolm Koonce sacked Tyler Shough and knocked the ball loose, with Maxx Crosby finally securing the recovery.

Cousins turned that opportunity into a touchdown pass to Cody White, the practice squad receiver whose third touchdown in two games offered another reminder that contributions can come from anywhere.

Rookie cornerback Zeke Masses followed with his third interception in two games. Cousins capitalized with a 4-yard touchdown throw to Brock Bowers, and suddenly the Raiders led 35-27.

“The defense just kept showing up for us in the second half,” said Cousins.

That defense wasn’t done, though.

Jeremy Chinn delivered a strip sack that Taron Johnson recovered. Then Nakobe Dean knocked the ball loose from Juwan Johnson and scooped it up himself.

Four straight Saints possessions ended with the Raiders taking the football.

Four separate reminders that this team had no interest in cooperating with the expected collapse.

Dean embodied that refusal.

His sideline-to-sideline presence gave the defense a player capable of influencing the game wherever the Saints tried to take it. When they needed one final stop, he supplied both the disruption and the recovery.

“We knew we had to rally back,” Dean said. “We had to start back to playing our football.”

Those are the plays that turn offseason additions into foundations.

Cousins provides another.

There is something to be said for having a quarterback whose experience can lower the temperature when everything around him is heating up.

An 11-point deficit in the Superdome can make every possession feel like the last one. It can tempt a quarterback into trying to win the game with one throw.

Cousins gives the Raiders someone who understands there is still a next play.

His value extends beyond delivering the ball. It is the steadiness he brings to the people waiting for him to deliver it.

“He’s poised, he’s confident. He just commands,” said Tucker. “There’s not enough words to describe him.”

Sunday, Cousins had a familiar difference-maker available for the first time this season.

Bowers returned from knee surgery and promptly caught 10 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown.

So much for easing back into things.

The Raiders had figured out how to win without their best pass catcher. His return showed how much more they can become with him.

He gives Cousins an answer when a play needs one, commands attention that can benefit everyone else and makes the offense more difficult to contain.

But Sunday mattered because the answers went well beyond Bowers.

They came from a rookie running back, a rookie cornerback, a receiver working to establish his place and defenders taking turns making the biggest play of the game.

That is how belief becomes something tangible.

Players stop waiting for someone else to rescue them. They start expecting the next contribution to come from anywhere, including themselves.

There are flaws, certainly.

The running game needs consistency. Falling behind by double digits and forcing four consecutive turnovers is no weekly formula.

Klint Kubiak has plenty to clean up.

But there is a difference between explaining why a team lost and correcting what nearly cost it a victory.

The Raiders keep earning the latter conversation.

Now they get the opponent that can give all of this another dimension.

Beating the Chiefs would not settle every question. Losing would not erase what happened here.

But the Raiders have earned the right to approach that game with something more substantial than hope that their rivals have an off day.

They have evidence of their own resilience, their own depth and their own ability to change a game.

And that is real progress.

The first two weeks made them interesting.

Sunday made you wonder how far this might go.