Report Card: Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs

A post-game breakdown of the Oakland Raiders loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, handing out letter grades to each positional group.

After putting together a thrilling six-game winning streak, the Raiders once again came up short against the Chiefs, and were defeated by a score of 21-13. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

There were some obvious negatives to takeaway from this game, as well as a few positives. Here is a breakdown of each positional group, along with letter grades to evaluate each group’s performance.

Offense

Quarterback:

Derek Carr had by far his worst game of the entire season. Carr went 17 of 41 for 117 yards to go along with zero touchdowns, and no interceptions. It was the first time all year that Carr was below a 50% completion percentage for a game. His 117 yards is the 2nd fewest in a game with at least 40 attempts in NFL history.

To be fair, Carr was clearly having mechanical issues with his right pinky. With every throw, he had a slight grimace of pain, and it showed in his overall performance.

So, if you want to praise Carr, you also need to be able to criticize him. This clearly hurt Carr’s case for the MVP award. I don’t want it to sound like I am beating a dead horse here, but Carr averaged 2.9 yards per attempt and 6.8 yards per completion, and had a QB rating of 49.1, which was the lowest of his career.

If you want to state your case for MVP, these are the games you need to show a national audience what you are made of.

Grade: D-

Running Backs:

The running game, on the other hand, played admirably and gained chunks of yards at a time. Latavius Murray had another great game, with 22 carries for 103 yards and 1 touchdown. Jalen Richard also contributed 29 yards on 6 carries.

Both running backs averaged over 4.6 yards per carry and picked up yards in crucial moments when Carr was struggling through the air. Richard and Murray came in and did what they needed to do. It is hard to really knock either one of their performances, especially when the Chiefs nearly turned the Raiders offense one-dimensional.

Why the Raiders decided to throw a fade route to Andre Holmes on 3rd & 1 instead of giving the ball to Murray will be a question some of us will stay up all night thinking about.

Grade: A-

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends:

Drops. Drops. Drops. Need I say more?

But to be serious, this was the worst game we have seen from the wide receiving core for the entire season. If I counted correctly, there were 10 drops that were all significant in their own ways. It really did not help that Carr was struggling as it is, but to then add multiple drops is not helping your cause.

Seth Roberts had only 2 receptions on 9 targets. Michael Crabtree only had 4 receptions for 21 yards. Amari Cooper led all Oakland receivers, but he only posted 5 receptions for 29 yards.

The tight ends also had a rough day. Mychal Rivera had 3 receptions for 26 yards and Clive Walford had 2 receptions for 21 yards. Walford was the only pass-catcher to average over 10 yards per reception.

Grade: F

Offensive Line:

The offensive line had a solid performance Thursday night. The O-Line held the Chiefs vaunted pass rush to only 1 sack and also opened gaping holes for the Raiders running backs.

The right tackle position is a cause for concern at this point. Austin Howard had a horrific game from beginning to end. Howard essentially ended the game when he committed a false start penalty to turn a 4th &1 into a 4th & 6. Complete play-changer.

I am going to grade the offensive line on a slight curve due to the fact that Kelechi Osemele was a late scratch due to an illness.

Grade: B+