It's that time of the holiday season. Yes, as usual the Raiders are heading south long before Santa does.
The Thanksgiving loss to the Cowboys clinched Oakland's 11th straight nonwinning season. They're 4-8, and two of their remaining four games are against AFC royalty, the Chiefs and the Broncos.
Coach Dennis Allen said Friday that there's no quit in his team even though the Affordable Care Act has a better chance of getting raves on Fox News than the Raiders have of making the playoffs.
"When you watch us play and watch us work every day," he said, "there is absolutely nothing that would give me any indication that there is anybody in that locker room that has any give-up in them."
Matt McGloin has earned a fourth start when the Raiders resume play against the Jets on the road Dec. 8, Allen said. The young quarterback completed 18 of 30 passes for 255 yards against Dallas but scuttled the Raiders' chances with a critical end-zone interception in the fourth quarter.
"I don't think he's done anything to play himself out of that position," Allen said. In every game that McGloin started, the Raiders had a chance to win, he said.
But Allen hasn't closed the book on Terrelle Pryor either. He plans to play Pryor at some point before the season ends.
"We need to have a good evaluation of what we have at the quarterback position as we move forward," he said. "These last four weeks will be instrumental in us being able to do that."
The Raiders also need to figure out a way to end games the way they start them. They are outscoring teams 86-41 in the first quarter, but in second halves they are being routed 157-80.
Allen sidestepped a question of whether opponents are making better adjustments than the Raiders. "The game is 60 minutes," he said. "It doesn't matter when you score your points, or when you give up your points. They decide the game at the end."
Unfortunately for the Raiders, he said, that's when they aren't making plays, when they count the most.
Tailback Rashad Jennings sustained a concussion in Texas and will go through the league-mandated protocol next week. If he can't play against the Jets, Darren McFadden will start. After missing three games with a hamstring strain, McFadden had just 13 yards in five carries against Dallas and dropped the only pass thrown in his direction.
For that matter, the Raiders mustered just 50 yards on 25 carries, their second worst rushing game of the year.
"They loaded up the box and made it very difficult for us to run the ball effectively on a consistent basis," Allen said.
Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald
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