Las Vegas Raiders lose heartbreaker to the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-31

The Las Vegas Raiders lost a heartbreaker to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night, falling to their division rival, 35-31.

The Las Vegas Raiders went into their game against the Kansas City Chiefs looking to move to 4-0 in the AFC West on Sunday night. While they put up a good fight against the reigning Super Bowl champs, they ended up on the wrong end of an instant classic inside Allegiant Stadium.

Here is a recap of the Raiders loss on Sunday night.

1st Half

The Raiders took the field first and displayed good balance between the power run game with a couple gashing pass plays down the field. Josh Jacobs shouldered the load and got the Raiders on the board first with a rushing score from the goal line.

The Chiefs offense was up next, and slowly matriculated down field with an uncharacteristic ball control strategy. Utilizing mostly quick throws and run plays, Andy Reid’s unit took 14 plays to move the length of the field ending with a TD throw to Tyreek Hill.

A savvy move to field the kick-off with one foot out of bounds by Henry Ruggs set the Raiders up on the 40 yard line. They wouldn’t take very long to move the ball with brilliant passing from Derek Carr, including a fade route to Nelson Agholor for a touchdown.

The Chiefs would answer with yet another score, aided by a questionable pass interference call on Damon Arnette to back the Raiders defense up to their 4 yard line. A surge up the gut from Clyde Edwards-Helaire would tie the game.

With a little over 11 minutes left in the 1st half, Carr and the offense would get another crack at it. Carr hooked up with Derek Carrier for an unscripted play on what would be the longest gain of the drive. On the goal-line, Carr attempted to hook up with Bryan Edwards on a fade, but it fell to the ground and they had to settle for a field goal to go up 17-14.

The Raiders defense finally got a stop after the Chiefs committed several penalties that backed them up 20 yards in total. Isaiah Johnson would get the pass break up that forced the Chiefs to punt with 2:07 left on the clock.

Jon Gruden’s offense wasn’t able to get much going despite another great off schedule play by Carr to make an improbable throw across the field to Derek Carrier for a first down. A Nelson Agholor drop however helped stymie the offense and the Raiders would have to punt the ball back to the Chiefs with a little over a minute remaining in the half.

The Chiefs looked poised to score driving down the field. But the defense stepped up again, this time Trayvon Mullen hauled in an errant pass from Patrick Mahomes to secure the first turnover of the game and the Raiders went into halftime maintaining their lead.