Raiders’ latest 49ers debacle raises two questions that could shape their future

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Another Sunday, another reality check for the Raiders in. their 38-17 loss to the 49ers.

And at some point, somebody in that building is going to have to decide how many more of these they need before they give Fernando Mendoza the ball.

At 4-5, the Raiders are mathematically alive in the playoff race. There’s merit in sticking with Kirk Cousins as long as coach Klint Kubiak believes the veteran gives them their best chance to win. Try telling the guys in that locker room, some of whom might never get a better shot at the playoffs, that next year takes precedence over the game they have to play this week.

But nine games give you a pretty good idea of who the Raiders are. They beat the teams they should beat, which qualifies as progress. They gave the Chiefs and Bills all they could handle. They also lost both games, and the Patriots, Rams and 49ers gave them a pretty good look at how much ground they still have to cover.

Right now, there are more teams on the schedule capable of exposing those shortcomings than there are teams the Raiders can count on beating. The Seahawks and Broncos get the next two cracks at them.

Which brings us back to Mendoza. The Raiders used the first overall pick on him because they expect him to be their quarterback for years. Every start he gets this season gives him something he can take into the offseason, and it gives Kubiak a better idea of what his young quarterback needs from him.

How far do the Raiders have to fall before those starts are worth more than whatever chance the standings say they still have?

Two observations:

Too many turnovers

For all the trouble the Raiders had slowing down the 49ers on Sunday, their defense at least gave them a chance.

The 49ers weren’t especially sharp, the Raiders came up with a couple of stops, and there was an opening for the offense to make this a game.

But the Raiders turned it over three times in the third quarter and five times overall.

Raiders quarterback Kirk Cousins werew responsible for three of them, all interceptions.

But Two of them tell you just about everything you need to know about how this one got away.

The first came on Cousins’ first throw of the second half. Jaden Dugger intercepted it and went 35 yards for a touchdown. Whatever the Raiders had spent halftime drawing up, they were down 28-10 before their defense even got back on the field.

Give the offense credit for what happened next. The Raiders cut the lead to 28-17 and had the ball in the hands of tight end Michael Mayer at the San Francisco goal line. For a team with an ugly history coming out of the locker room after halftime, they were a yard away from making the third quarter look an awful lot different.

Mayer was fighting to get in when he fumbled. Fred Warner recovered for a touchback. And when Purdy found Jordan Watkins for a 37-yard touchdown, a game that could have been 28-24 was suddenly 35-17.

There’s your 21-point swing. Seven for San Francisco on the interception, seven the Raiders left at the goal line and seven more for the 49ers once they got the ball back.

The Raiders have enough trouble beating a team this good when they make it earn every point. Give away that many and they don’t have the offense to get them back.

The fourth quarter brought more of the same. Mayer caught a touchdown pass from Cousins, only to have it wiped out by his own offensive pass interference penalty. Three plays later, Cousins threw an interception in the same end zone.

The 49ers kicked a field goal to go up 38-17.

Tough day for the defense, again

Somewhere in the design of the blitz Raiders defensive coordinator Rob Leonard called Sunday was the possibility that Brock Purdy would look up and see Christian McCaffrey running free, with a defensive tackle standing between the two.

You wonder how that conversation went when the Raiders put the play in. Because from where Tonka Hemingway stood when Purdy dropped a pass over his head, it was hard to imagine what anyone expected him to do about it.

Leonard sent a linebacker and a cornerback after the 49ers quarterback, dropping Hemingway and fellow defensive tackle Adam Butler into coverage to make the numbers work on the back end. Purdy had enough time to find McCaffrey, who went untouched for a 21-yard touchdown.

Which brings us to a question the Raiders have given people plenty of reason to ask this season. Is Leonard the right guy for this job?

One bad call can happen to anybody. The trouble for Leonard, a first-year coordinator, is that Sunday offered such a good look at what happens when a guy running one of the NFL’s worst defenses starts grasping for answers. You can appreciate the urge to try something different against Purdy. You can also ask why, of all the players on the field, Hemingway and Butler were the two Leonard wanted moving away from the quarterback.

And that’s where the job gets bigger than drawing up a blitz. Somebody has to look at the call from Hemingway’s side of things. If the pressure comes up a step short, does the big man have a reasonable chance to make the play his coach is asking him to make?

That part falls squarely on the coordinator.

The Raiders owe Leonard a fair evaluation of the whole season. They owe their players that same courtesy. And before they decide how many of those players need replacing, they ought to take a hard look at the guy who put them there.