The Raiders have blown leads this season at rate unseen in the NFL in nearly 100 years

An NFL fan couldn’t be blamed for turning away from Thursday’s Raiders-Rams game before it ended.

Las Vegas scored the game’s first 10 points and held that advantage through three quarters as the Rams managed just three points in the first 45 minutes.

But new L.A. quarterback Baker Mayfield stunned the Raiders by leading two touchdown drives in the final four minutes of the game as the Rams won 17-16 at SoFi Stadium.

The Raiders’ dim playoff hopes may have been extinguished with the loss, which dropped their record to 5-8.

“There are things we could have done in all three phases that would’ve put us further ahead in games,” Raiders coach Josh McDaniels said on the team’s website. “There’s a lot of things that go into a result in the National Football League. … These are hard lessons to learn, they are.”

The Raiders led 16-10 and faced a third-and-1 play from their 34-yard line with 2:38 left in the game. A first down would have essentially ended the game, but Josh Jacobs was stuffed for no gain. Raiders punter A.J. Cole pinned the Rams at their 2-yard line and the Las Vegas players were already celebrating.

The great punt just added to the lore of Mayfield, who orchestrated a 98-yard drive, capped by a 23-yard touchdown pass to Van Jefferson. That and the extra point gave L.A. a 17-16 victory in Mayfield’s third day in L.A.

Unfortunately for Raiders fans, they’ve grown accustomed to seeing their team blow a big lead this season.

There were all kinds of crazy stats about the Raiders ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

There’s this from The Athletic.

ESPN revealed that three other teams have blown four 13-point leads in a season.

The Rams did that in just nine games during a strike-shortened season and finished 2-7 in 1982. The Jets were 1-15 in 1996, while the 1998 Colts finished 3-13 in Peyton Manning’s rookie season.

The worst stat of them all comes from the Associated Press’ Josh Dubow, who noted the Raiders’ penchant for blowing big halftime leads hasn’t been seen in the NFL since at least 1930.

Here are the four games, with the halftime leads, that Las Vegas coughed up.

• Led the Cardinals 20-0 and lost 29-23 in overtime

• Led the Chiefs 20-10 and lost 30-29

• Led the Jaguars 20-10 and lost 27-20

• Led the Rams 13-3 and lost 17-16

“We had every opportunity to close this game out and we didn’t,” Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby told reporters after the game. “I am beyond disappointed.”

“I am sick about it,” Crosby added. “We played good football for most of the game and we just didn’t close the game out, and it’s happened before, so it’s just unfortunate. We have work to do, it’s as simple as that. It sucks because you know when you’re in the game you think you’ve done enough to finish it and then we just kept giving them chances. It was all self-inflicted.”