Six games. Six halftimes. Zero points on the first possession after the break, every single time.
That’s a pattern with its own zip code.
The Raiders have gone three-and-out or worse in five of their six games this season, and the second-half opening drive has been the worst of it. Klint Kubiak admitted as much this week, and he didn’t blame the playbook for it.
“It’s just a complete lack of production,” Kubiak said.
He kept talking, and this is the part that should worry Raiders fans more than any scheme breakdown ever could: “I think it’s a lot of energy too, so as a coaching staff we’ve got to make sure our guys have more energy coming out for that second half.”
That’s an admission. He’s describing an effort problem, not a scheme problem, and effort problems don’t get solved by installing a new wrinkle on a Wednesday practice field.
This isn’t new, either. Las Vegas went three-and-out on its opening second-half possession against the Chargers back in Week 2 and did the exact same thing against the Saints in Week 3. Six games deep, nobody has fixed it, and the head coach is standing at a podium calling it what it is instead of dressing it up as a one-week matchup issue. When your own coach says the problem is effort, you’ve stopped talking about football and started talking about culture.
Kubiak was even blunter about the broader three-game skid a few days earlier:
Klint Kubiak with a pretty poignant message about what the Raiders need to improve after this three game losing stretch:
“Close. Games. Out.”
— Sam Warren (@samwarren83) October 18, 2026
Three words. Fits on a bumper sticker. Sums up a season.
Sunday is genuinely scary instead of just embarrassing. The Rams rank third in total offense and third in total defense this week — the only team in the league ranked top five in both categories.
The Rams are ranked 3rd in total offense and 3rd in total defense this season
They are the only team to be ranked top 5 in both
They are 2-4, in last place in the NFC West pic.twitter.com/hROWMo83av
— PFF (@PFF) October 19, 2026
A two-way profile like that doesn’t show up often. The only other team in the last 25 years to post 400-plus yards a game on offense while allowing fewer than 300 on defense was the 2007 Patriots, and everybody remembers how that season went for teams standing across from them.
None of this is Kirk Cousins’ fault on the stat sheet. He’s tied for the NFL lead with 14 touchdown passes, and Brock Bowers has become the engine of the whole operation, commanding 35% of the Raiders’ air yards on a given Sunday. The problem is that none of that production is surviving intermission. A team can have a quarterback playing like a top-five passer and a tight end eating targets like it’s his job and still walk out of the tunnel looking like it forgot the game was still happening.
Raiders’ season struggles have an actual theme now, and it isn’t schematic. This Sunday, a defense built like a 2007 Patriots tribute act gets to find out whether a team that can’t locate energy after halftime can locate any against actual Rams’ defensive prowess. Allegiant Stadium will be loud for about thirty minutes. Then we’ll see if the lights are still on.
