OAKLAND — This won’t be a fire Dennis Allen request. No need to kick a man while he’s down.

Instead, let’s pose a question: After Sunday’s performance, what’s the reason to keep him?

The Raiders were humiliated in their home opener 30-14. Fans rained down boos as the Houston Texans made the home team look like a Division II foe. This was the exact kind of game owner Mark Davis told this paper “can’t happen anymore” — those performances where you feel like the Raiders “didn’t show up.”

Another week has gone by and the Raiders have failed to show a glimmer of hope that suggests the future is brighter. Instead, they took it a step further backward by regressing.

“The mistakes are correctable,” said Charles Woodson, who is already frustrated beyond pretense and company lines. “But we said that last week. How long do we get to say mistakes are correctable before we get to a point where we realize they are not (being corrected)? I don’t know. Are they correctable? Yeah. But when do they get corrected?”

This is worse than starting the season 0-2. This is going into Week 3 — at New England, no less — with nothing to hang their hat on. The bye week was a natural spot to make a change if the Raiders got off to a bad start. Now? Davis would be showing mercy if offices weren’t cleaned out before “Dancing with the Stars” premieres Monday night.

The defense, where the Raiders spent the large chunk of their $60 million shopping spree, was completely outclassed by Houston. The offense got another decent start from rookie quarterback Derek Carr yet still struggled to move the ball and didn’t score until the game was out of reach.

Whenever they did get movement, they squandered it with turnovers. James Jones fumbled twice — on the same play.

The Raiders took their futility to a new level of awe Sunday. It’s the how they are losing that is the worst indictment on this regime. The absence of necessary intangibles is befuddling.

Where is the toughness? Where is the discipline? Where is the focus? Isn’t that what all the veteran presence and Super Bowl experience was supposed to bring?

“I’m really embarrassed,” Woodson said. “When I came into the stadium today on the bus I saw all the fans there. Everybody’s optimistic. It’s our first home game. They’re excited to see their Raiders and … what was that we put out there?

“That’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for this team. I’m embarrassed for these fans. And the thing about it is, I’m part of it. I don’t know what we need to do as a team going forward. I know something is going to have to be done.”

Something is not clicking on the field, in the locker room. Those fingers point first to the coach.

The not-enough-time-to-bring-change reason no longer holds water. Allen and general manager Reggie McKenzie spent the offseason restocking the Raiders cupboard, so these are his players that he chose.

And the no-other-options reason doesn’t fly. After all, Tony Sparano is on the staff. He turned the Miami Dolphins from a one-win team to a playoff team in one season; he qualifies to be an interim coach.

No one was expecting the Raiders to run the table. Starting 0-2 was always a realistic possibility. But they’ve been dominated the first two games.

In the opener at the New York Jets, they stayed in the game partly because the Jets couldn’t get out of their own way. Still, the Raiders were a couple of key plays away from stealing the win. That was a glimmer of something.

How’d they capitalize on that? By playing poorly enough to eradicate what little positive remained.

These weren’t the Denver Broncos the Raiders were walloped by Sunday. These were the same Texans who got their first win in a calendar year last week. This was a team led by a rookie coach in Bill O’Brien, with a run-of-the-mill quarterback in Ryan Fitzpatrick, and past-their-prime stars like Andre Johnson and Arian Foster.

The Houston Texans may be good enough to beat the Raiders, but they aren’t dominate-you-in-your-own-house good.

An average team makes a game of it. A bad team puts up a fight. The Raiders crumbled like a stale pound cake.

The reasons to change the coach are plenty. But those have been there for two years now. The real problem is finding the reasons for Allen to stay.

It would be one thing if he got his players to max out. They don’t.

It would be defendable if he had the ear of the veterans, and canning their coach would cause a locker room revolt. It won’t.

It would be worth it to keep him if he were needed to develop the young talent. But of the young players on the roster who matter most, most of them — Carr, lineman Gabe Jackson, tight end Mychal Rivera — aren’t being mentored by Allen anyway. That’s not his side of the ball.

So then what are the reasons to keep Allen? No good ones remain.

“We need change,” Allen said when asked why he seemed upset. “We’re a better football team than we put out on the field today.”

Read Marcus Thompson II’s blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/thompson. Contact him at mthomps2@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ThompsonScribe.