The 2008 Oakland Raiders season was the 49th overall season of the Oakland Raiders franchise, the franchise's 39th season in the National Football League (NFL), their 14th season since their return to Oakland and the second and final season under head coach Lane Kiffin. The Raiders improved upon their 4–12 record from 2007. This was also the first time in four seasons that the Raiders did not play both contestants from the previous Super Bowl, playing the New England Patriots, but not the New York Giants. This was also the first time in five seasons the team did not finish last in their division but stood alone at third instead.

Lane Monte Kiffin is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Ole Miss Rebels. Kiffin was the offensive coordinator for the USC Trojans football team from 2005 to 2006, head coach of the National Football League's Oakland Raiders from 2007 to 2008, head coach of the University of Tennessee Volunteers college football team in 2009, and head coach of the Trojans from 2010 to 2013. He was the youngest head coach in modern NFL history at the time when he joined the Raiders, and, for a time, was the youngest head coach of a BCS Conference team in college football. Kiffin was the offensive coordinator at the University of Alabama from 2014 until 2016, when he was hired to be the head coach at Florida Atlantic, a position he held until December 2019, when he became the head coach at Ole Miss.