The message of closing out games came through loud and clear for Raiders

The 2026 season has quickly become gut check time for the Las Vegas Raiders.

After starting out on an impressive 3-0 start and looking like a genuine surprise to start the season, the Raiders have fallen back to .500 with a three-game losing streak. While that level of play is at least acceptable for a team that came into the season with little in terms of expectations, head coach Klint Kubiak has made it clear he will not tolerate his standards slipping.

Sunday’s loss to the Buffalo Bills served as a breaking point of sorts, where Kubiak made his thoughts on where the Raiders need to improve clear in one concise statement.

“Close. Games. Out.”

Those three words have created a mantra for the Raiders to live by, and their play over the past few weeks made the reminder necessary.

Since Week Three, the Raiders have been outscored 38-9 in the third quarter alone; the only team not to put up double-digit points in that time were the Kansas City Chiefs in Week Four. It is no secret how such struggles coming out of the halftime break have coincided with a 1-3 record in that span, and Kubiak has made it abundantly clear that, even with his “bite-sized” approach to problem solving, tackling the post-halftime blues takes top priority.

“It’s such a competitive game, and if you’re hoping to keep it close in the fourth quarter, that’s not a winning mindset,” said Kubiak on Wednesday. “When you have an opportunity to make a play, when you’re playing complementary football on one side of the ball, special teams gives you good field position, you got to go score on that drive. Defense gets a turnover, you got to go score on that drive. If there’s a sudden change defensively, then we got to get a stop.

Just having the ultimate competitor’s mindset of not being okay with having the game be close in the fourth quarter. That’s not what we’re here to do.”

To their credit, it appears that the Raiders have taken that message to heart.

Kirk Cousins was particularly critical of himself against the Bills, and he was not the only player left questioning what they could have done better. The veteran quarterback has gone as far as to stop practices to simulate halftime in order to achieve progress on drives to start out the third quarter. It is just one of many ways where the Raiders hope to seek improvement in key areas and maintain control of games in critical spots.

“We’ve got to be better in the third quarter as a team,” said Cousins. “We’ve been strong in the fourth quarter in terms of just moving the football, scoring points, but second to last possession of the game, you can’t throw three straight incompletions.

You got to get the drive started. You got to get it going and give us a chance there to take that ball down the field and put up points and get back in the game. Those are the kinds of opportunities we got to have when they come in the fourth quarter. We got to make the most of them.”

The defense can also contribute in that regard, particularly in terms of flipping the field and granting more possessions for the offense.

There were no issues in starting the season, as the Raiders defense forced nine turnovers in the first three games. That ability to take the ball away has dried up in recent weeks, with the past three games only producing one turnover. That stark discrepancy has directly correlated with the results of those stretches, so finding ways to win the turnover battle once again will also be a key factor for the Raiders moving forward.

“We just got to get the ball back,” said cornerback Eric Stokes.

“You look back at the [New Orleans] Saints game, you look back at the [Los Angeles] Chargers game and all that stuff. In the fourth quarter, we were able to take the ball away and we were able to give our offense more and more chances. That’s something that we haven’t done in the past three weeks, and we just got to get back to that.”

With an equally reeling Los Angeles Rams team coming to Allegiant Stadium, the Raiders know what must be done in order to achieve a get-right game and place themselves back into the win column.