Raiders horrendous in goal-to-go situations

Fifteen times this season, the Raiders defense has been faced with goal-to-go situations.

Their opponents have scored touchdowns on all 15 possessions.

It’s just one of many stunning stats that help explain how a season with playoff expectations has gone so awry after eight games.

Defensive tackle Kendal Vickers said buckling down and keeping teams out of the end zone comes down to a mentality.

“We always say if you’re on the goal line on defense, something bad happened,” he said. “You have to have the mindset of, ‘We have to unscrew whatever we just screwed up.’ It just starts with everyone doing their job and finding a way to get the ball or make people kick field goals.”

They haven’t done that this season. And while coach Josh McDaniels is primarily associated with the offense, the entire team is his responsibility, and he acknowledged the Raiders have struggled to keep teams out of the end zone in goal-to-go situations.

“We need to figure out how to put ourselves in positions to maybe keep somebody from putting it in,” McDaniels said. “Creating some type of a negative play would be important to us in those situations. But certainly that’s not good enough for us, especially if we’re playing a bunch of tight games, which we’ve been in a lot of them. Those are the sequences that ultimately end up factoring into the winning or the losing, whether you’re on offense or on defense.”

The Raiders (2-6) have lost five games by less than one score. In each one, holding an opponent to three or zero points instead of seven when they got inside the 10 could have made a difference.

For example:

— Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert hit fullback Zander Horvath on a 1-yard touchdown pass two plays after a third-and-goal stop by the Raiders was wiped out by a late hit on cornerback Nate Hobbs in Los Angeles’ 24-19 season-opening win.

— The Cardinals converted all three goal-to-go situations into touchdowns, as they rallied from a 20-0 deficit to force overtime. The last of those conversions was a 3-yard scoring run by quarterback Kyler Murray on fourth-and-goal as time expired. Arizona won 29-23.

— Running back Derrick Henry and quarterback Ryan Tannehill each had a 1-yard scoring run on first-down plays in the Titans’ 24-22 win.

— Quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw four touchdowns to tight end Travis Kelce inside the 10 in the Chiefs’ 30-29 win.

— The Jaguars converted both of their opportunities Sunday, one through the air and one on the ground, in their 27-20 victory.

Defensive coordinator Patrick Graham said the main goal is to take away the easiest option for getting the ball in the end zone.

“We talked about in the red area we don’t want them to run the ball in,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re preventing that.”

Seven of the 15 goal-to-go scores have been on runs.

“There’s a lot of stuff we got to fix in terms of just getting better at this point in the season,” Graham said. “We’ve got to keep going through that process and trying to figure out if we should do something differently down there because it hasn’t worked so far.”

The problem isn’t exclusive to Graham’s defense or McDaniels’ team. Dating to last season, the Raiders have allowed touchdowns on 29 consecutive goal-to-go situations.

Not surprisingly, they also struggle on red zone drives as a whole. The Raiders have allowed opponents to score touchdowns on 71 percent of drives that have reached their 20-yard line, second worst in the league to the Vikings.

“Ultimately in a tight game, those are the things that swing it,” McDaniels said.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.