For a few weeks, Rob Leonard looked like one of the rising names in the league. The Raiders had opened the season unbeaten, the Dolphins were held to 13 points, the Chargers to 14, and even when the Saints put up 27 in Week 3, Leonard’s defense bailed itself out with four fourth-quarter turnovers to finish off a comeback win.
That version of the Raiders’ defense feels a long way off now.
Since that Saints game, the unit has surrendered 30 or more points in seven straight games, and Leonard’s standing has taken a hit along with it. His job is still safe for the moment, but the conversation is starting to shift toward what happens if the defense doesn’t clean things up over the second half of the season.
Raider Nation Radio host Q Myers addressed that possibility this week on the Locked on Raiders podcast.
“I would say that it’s probably way too early to have the pull the plug conversation on Robbie Leonard as the DC. But when you are in a production-based business and you don’t produce, I say it all the time, you’re not going to be in business,” Myers said on the Locked on Raiders podcast.
“The Raiders defense has not been in business. They haven’t been producing six straight games with they’re giving up 30 plus points.
So something has got to give. Truthful conversations are going to have to be had and that’s just the reality of where they are, especially with the fact that they have talent on defense.”
One thing to keep in mind is that Leonard was one of Klint Kubiak’s few major assistant additions that he had not worked with before arriving in Las Vegas. That detail could matter if Kubiak has to make a bigger decision after the season.
Leonard, for his part, pointed to a broad mix of issues when he met with reporters this week, but he singled out fatigue as one piece of the puzzle.
“When you’re stacking inconsistent plays it’s always multiple things,” Leonard said on during his media availability on Thursday.
“But I’d say fatigue makes cowards of us all. When you’re on the field a long time, mistakes tend to happen more often. I’m just going to put it that way.”
It was a revealing answer, though the numbers suggest the Raiders’ problems go beyond simple wear and tear. Their defense has been at its worst in the first and third quarters, which makes the fatigue explanation harder to pin down. Over the last six weeks, they’ve allowed a league-leading 51 combined first-quarter points, and they’re giving up 6.3 points per game in the opening quarter, tied for 29th in the NFL.
The third quarter has been just as rough. Leonard’s defense owns the NFL’s worst point differential in that frame, sitting at minus-26 through mid-season.
Leonard didn’t spell out what kind of fatigue he meant, and maybe he was talking about something mental. But from the outside, the bigger issue looks like a team losing too many one-on-one battles. The defensive line is getting pushed around, the secondary isn’t holding up consistently, and the playmaking that showed up early in the season has faded.
Fatigue may be part of it. It’s probably not the whole story. The Raiders have a lot more to fix on defense than that.
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