Post-Game Pontification: Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs

Miscellaneous thoughts on the Oakland Raiders 21-13 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Oakland Raiders fell to 10-3 on the season, and worse, were swept by the Kansas City Chiefs during the regular season.

It was an ugly game for the Silver and Black. What went wrong?

Raiders lost a tough one in KC; still in the playoff catbird seat at 10-3.

The Raiders should have won that game. No turnovers on offense, forced three on defense, ran for 100+ yards, and don’t win. Previous teams who had done that same thing were 220-11 entering the game — so the Raiders were loss number 12.

They had their opportunities but simply couldn’t get it done.

Give the Chiefs all the credit in the world. They made the plays and the Raiders didn’t. They are 5-1 against Derek Carr and 4-0 against Jack Del Rio as Raiders coach.

Defense came to play

I know some are going scoff at that notion, but that second half, Oakland’s defense did everything but score points.

They held the Chiefs scoreless and came up with two turnovers in the red zone. They hand=fed the offense and got repaid with only 3 points. Somebody needs to tell Amerson that the next time he’s in man-coverage on a TE, get in that fool’s face and run with him.

Not so special teams

The Raiders lost by 8 points and the special teams gave up 9. Do the math.

There are two ways the Chiefs beat you, and special teams is one of them. The plan from jump street should have been to kick it out of bounds and out of the end zone. The risk much greater than the reward.

Passing game struggled all night

Aside from the no-huddle drive to end the first half, the Raiders were out of sync all night in the passing game. The Chiefs didn’t blitz — they played their coverage and made tackles. They even dropped nine and rushed only two from time to time.

Carr looked like his internal clock was running a tick too fast. He was anticipating pressure when it wasn’t there and running into pressure. He was definitely not as accurate in this game and it cost them.

Run the damn ball

I don’t know if Carr was checking to pass plays or they were called, but it seemed like every drive would start off with a 6-yard run. Then they would pass the ball two times and punt.

This culminated in the final drive, where they ran it multiple times in a row to get inside the 20 at 3rd & 1. Then two pass plays and the game is over.

Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth were calling it out on the broadcast — two deep safeties, you run the ball. Which they did, until they didn’t and then they screwed the pooch.

Playoff seeding far from over

KC plays at home vs. Tennessee and Denver, and then travel to San Diego.

New England hosts the Ravens, play at Denver, are home vs. the Jets, then end on the road at Miami, where they lost the last two years.

The Raiders are at San Diego, home for the Colts and close at Denver. Anybody notice how much Denver plays a role in all this?

10-3 and looking the playoffs in the face

This was a missed opportunity by the Raiders. No way around it. Despite a subpar outing, they still should have won that game. But, it’s over with. Time for the next game.

Still a lot to accomplish for this team, and it’s still all within their reach. If you asked anybody on the Raider payroll or the Raider Nation, back in the summer, how does 10-3 in December sound? What you think we would have said?