Five second-half turnovers sink Raiders in 38-17 loss at San Francisco

The Raiders went to Levi's Stadium and lost 38-17, and the scoreboard is close to honest. San Francisco held the ball for 38 minutes and 18 seconds, ran 69 plays to Las Vegas's 47, and never punted. Not once, in nine possessions. The Raiders gave the ball away five times, every one of them after halftime, and they are 4-5.

There is one play that ended it. With 4:19 left in the third quarter, down 28-17, Las Vegas had second and 13 at the San Francisco 25, handed a short field by a fourth-down stop. Kirk Cousins found Michael Mayer over the middle for 24 yards, down to the 1. Upton Stout got a hand in at the finish, Mayer lost the ball, and Fred Warner recovered it in the end zone for a touchback. A drive that should have made it a one-score game instead gave San Francisco the ball at its own 20, and seven plays and 80 yards later Jordan Watkins caught a 37-yard touchdown with 36 seconds on the clock. 35-17.

What makes it sit worse is that the Mayer fumble was the second one in San Francisco territory inside four minutes. Treydan Stukes had picked Brock Purdy off at the Raiders 43 and returned it 26 yards to the 49ers 31 at 8:01 of the third. Two snaps later Warner punched the ball out of Brock Bowers after a five-yard catch and Dre Greenlaw recovered it at the same 31. Purdy was then stopped short on fourth and one at his own 40 by Folorunso Fatukasi, so the Raiders got the ball right back at the 40. They reached the 1 again. They scored nothing on either trip. Three possessions starting in San Francisco territory in the third quarter, zero points, and a touchdown the other way.

Offense

The plan was to throw it, and in fairness the throwing worked in stretches. Cousins went 22 of 32 for 216 yards with a touchdown, and he was not sacked once by a front that includes Nick Bosa, DeForest Buckner and Osa Odighizuwa. The offensive line deserves that credit on its own. Las Vegas converted 6 of 9 third downs, which is the sort of number that normally comes with a win. Bowers had 111 yards on seven catches, including the 21-yard touchdown in the third and a 33-yarder that put the ball at the San Francisco 1 in the fourth.

Everything else was a problem. The run game got 15 carries and 24 yards, 1.6 a crack. Ashton Jeanty had six for 25 and then five catches for minus 5 yards on seven targets, 11 touches for 20 yards, which is the single flattest line on the sheet. Mike Washington Jr. carried six times for minus 3. With no run game the whole offense came down to 47 plays and 240 yards, 5.1 a play, and three interceptions.

The red zone number says 1 for 2, and that undersells it. Two second-half possessions reached the San Francisco 1 and produced nothing. The Mayer fumble was one. The other came in the fourth, first and goal at the 1: Cousins ran up the middle for minus 2, Mayer caught a three-yard touchdown that was wiped out by his own offensive pass interference, and from the 13 Cousins threw for Tre Tucker in the end zone and Renardo Green intercepted it. Mayer finished with three catches for 37 yards, a lost fumble at the goal line and a penalty that erased a touchdown. He lost his afternoon.

Defense

San Francisco ran 43 times for 190 yards, 4.4 a carry, and that is the game. Christian McCaffrey had 18 for 68 and two touchdowns, Kaelon Black 11 for 70, and Purdy ran seven times for 40 including a one-yard score. When a defense cannot make an opponent throw, it cannot get off the field: the 49ers were 8 of 13 on third down, 2 of 3 on fourth, and 3 of 4 in the red zone. Nine drives, no punts.

The pressure never arrived. One sack, by Maxx Crosby, who also had a tackle for loss and two quarterback hits and was the only Raider who consistently moved the pocket. Kwity Paye had a hit. Beyond that, Purdy sat in clean air and went 17 of 25 for 232 yards at 9.3 a throw. George Kittle caught four for 58 and was a problem on third down all day. Watkins, playing for the injured Deebo Samuel, caught four for 86 and his first NFL touchdown.

Nakobe Dean's 18 tackles is a number that only happens when a defense is on the field for 69 plays, and plenty of those tackles were four yards downfield. Quay Walker had 11, Jeremy Chinn 10. Stukes's interception was the only takeaway. Jermod McCoy had the best fourth quarter of anyone in silver and black, breaking up two passes in a row to force a field goal instead of a touchdown, though he also drew an illegal use of hands flag that gave San Francisco a free first down on the same drive. The interior was overrun. Tim Keenan III and Fatukasi combined for six tackles in 43 rushing attempts.

Special teams

The one unit that did its job. Dylan Laube returned seven kickoffs for 197 yards, 28.1 a return, and his 54-yarder to the San Francisco 42 late in the second quarter set up the only points the Raiders scored without driving: a seven-play possession that gained 11 yards and ended with Matt Gay's 50-yard field goal. Gay was 1 for 1 and 2 for 2. AJ Cole punted once, 45 yards, inside the 20, because the offense never gave him a second chance. Coverage held up, with no 49ers return longer than 31 yards. Field position was the one phase Las Vegas won, and it was worth three points.

Coaching

Klint Kubiak's team came out of the locker room and threw an interception on the first snap of the second half. First and 10 at the Las Vegas 30, 14:43 on the clock, and Jaden Dugger took it 35 yards the other way. Whatever was said at halftime did not survive one play. To the credit of the staff and the players, the answer was a nine-play, 69-yard touchdown drive that made it 28-17 and briefly looked like a plan. Then the two fumbles.

The run game got 15 carries, and it is hard to argue with abandoning something gaining 1.6 yards, but a team that runs 15 times is also a team that cannot control a clock. Las Vegas held the ball for 21 minutes and 42 seconds. The one fourth-down attempt, fourth and 11 from the Las Vegas 31 with 3:57 left and down 21, was the right call and ended in an interception. The sequence that is harder to defend is first and goal at the 1 in the fourth, where the call was a Cousins run up the middle that lost two yards with Jeanty on the field, and two snaps later the ball was in the end zone for the wrong team. On the other side, the defense gave up 43 carries and never adjusted to the point where San Francisco had to stop running.

What it means

At 4-5, the Raiders are three games behind Denver and two and a half behind Kansas City in the division, and the pattern has stopped being a coincidence. Las Vegas has now allowed 33 or more points in five straight games: 45 at New England, 33 to Buffalo, 35 to the Rams, 33 at the Jets and 38 here. They won one of those five, and that win came by outscoring New York rather than stopping it. The offense has shown it can put up 38 in a week when things break right. The defense has shown nothing resembling a floor.

The second-half turnovers are a newer problem and a more specific one. Five giveaways from a team that had been reasonably careful with the ball is the kind of day that can be written off once. It cannot be written off while the defense is giving up 190 yards on the ground.

What is next

Seattle at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, November 15, a 1:05 p.m. Pacific kickoff against a 5-4 team. The question is the simple one and it has not changed: can this defense force an opponent into a punt. San Francisco did not have to attempt one. New England, Buffalo, the Rams and the Jets all scored at will. Until Las Vegas can get off the field on third down, the rest of it, Bowers's hands and Crosby's effort and the line keeping Cousins clean, is scenery.