One Postgame Take

The Raiders have now lost four out of their last seven. In those four losses, they have given up 146 points, or an average of 36.5 points. Not once this season have the Raiders held an opponent to less than 23 points.

Forget stats, look at the scores of our games and tell me you can go far in the NFL when handing out points like Christmas candy.

You can look at this game by itself, of course. You can say it's the Packers, and that's what the Packers do, they score a ton of points.

Then again, you could say it's the Raiders, and that's what the Raiders do, they give a ton up.

This is not trending well. We need to win three out of the final three games to give ourselves a slim chance of making the playoffs. The Broncos have a one-game lead with three left, and they own the tiebreaker.

Winning two out of three probably means that we sit home for the ninth straight year, and that we improve upon last year's record by a measly one victory. If that happens, it will be nice to have finally ascended the apparent Mt. Olympus of a winning record. But the progress of the Raiders has become so drawn out, and so incremental, as to be painful. The supposed Team of The Decades is on the verge of taking an entire decade (or more) to reach the playoffs again.

Here was a must-win game, and the Raiders weren't even competitive for the second week in a row. Go ahead and tell me I'm not being optimistic enough. Tell me it will all be okay.

But when the Raiders get outscored 80 to 30 in successive weeks with the playoffs on the line, this is what you get: the return of the Clown Car.

The playoffs, once so promising, remain possible. But the Clown Car needs to be shut down immediately, and the Raiders need to return to playing tough, competitive football now. The margin of error no longer exists.