Raiders still aren’t close to finding a fix for their struggles

It’s been four weeks now and the Oakland Raiders look as lost as ever. No, they haven’t been quite as bad as they were on that Sunday night game against Washington but the improvement has been minimal and they still find themselves light years away from where they were expected to be.

And that’s what’s most concerning about this slump, that the Raiders seem to have no idea how to get out of it.

We’ve heard the usual coach speak from Jack Del Rio and crew. “We just need to do the little things right” “Gotta pay better attention to detail” “Gotta make plays when we have the chance” etc, etc, etc. But nothing we’ve heard from Del Rio, or Derek Carr or Todd Downing or anyone else in the organization gives us hope that anyone in Silver and Black has any idea how to fix this.

There is no obvious answer because this is a team in a tailspin with multiple problems contributing to the slump. From poor quarterback play to poor offensive line play to poor tackling to ignoring tight ends to poor play calling to poor scheming to poor preparation to poor execution. You name it and the Raiders have had problems with it over the past four weeks.

That’s why there isn’t much hope for things being turned around any time soon. The four game losing streak has truly been a team effort which makes it that much harder to fix.

One would have hoped the Washington game would be a wake up call and that the Raiders would bounce back with a vengeance. Then you hoped the Denver game would be a wake up call, then the Ravens game and now the Chargers. We keep waiting for this Raiders team to wake up and play inspired football the way they did last season.

So while I place much of the blame on the coaching staff like many others in Raider Nation, I also recognize that this problem is bigger than just coaching. This losing streak has gotten into the heads of the players and it’s impacting how they play. You don’t see the same confidence or swagger as we once saw.

Yes, the coaches need to be better, but so do the players. If the Raiders want to get back to winning, it’s going to take everyone being better because there is no quick answer, no obvious solution. The only option is for every man in Silver and Black to step up their game and do better than they have been.

Besides that, I’m just as lost as everyone else on how to turn this thing around.