Kansas City Chiefs: Getting to know Oakland Raiders before Week 2
By Cullen Jekel
Despite dealing with all of the drama surrounding Antonio Brown in the weeks and days leading up to facing the Broncos, the Raiders came out focused, aggressive and ready to rock, and came away with the victory.
Now, for the final time, Oakland welcomes to the Black Hole the hated Kansas City Chiefs. With a win or a tie, the Chiefs will end up with an all-time winning record at Oakland Coliseum.
Even though the Chiefs will be without Tyreek Hill, who’s out due to injury, the offense will still be rollicking, as it proved against the Jaguars. In Hill’s absence, Kansas City still manged to dominate the game when they had the ball. Sammy Watkins looked great while Travis Kelce chipped in and the running back tandem of Damien Williams and LeSean McCoy kept Jacksonville’s defense honest.
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For the Raiders to have a shot, the pass rush must continue getting to the quarterback. In this instance, the Raiders must force Mahomes into making multiple mistakes while containing Williams and McCoy. And while the Oakland secondary will have its hands full with Watkins and Kelce, that’s at least one less player than they normally would’ve had to worry about.
Weiss said the pass rush “all starts with Brentson Buckner, the team’s new defensive line coach, who came in and made wholesale changes along the defensive line. Adding Clelin Ferrell with the No. 4 overall pick was huge, as you could see the kind of push he got, and Arden Key looked a lot better in Year No. 2. Benson Mayowa and Josh Mauro were nice surprises, and we knew that Maurice Hurst could look like a first round talent after falling in the draft. Oakland has a better grasp on Paul Guenther’s scheme in Year 2 as well, and that led to more sacks on Monday night.”
On offense, Jacobs must continue to play well while Carr needs to play even better than he did against Denver. This won’t be a low-scoring game, so the Raiders need to control the ball to have a shot at winning.
“The Raiders are a pretty big underdog in Week 2,” Weiss said, “so I am not going to go out there and say they are going to blast the Chiefs at home. The fact is, the Coliseum was rocking on Monday night, and the team does not return home for weeks, so you can expect another rowdy crowd on Sunday afternoon.
“In addition, the Raiders always play the Chiefs tough at home, so I could see this one going down to the wire. In the end, Kansas City has too much firepower, and will leave Oakland with a 31-28 victory on the road.”
Thanks to Brad Weiss for answering my questions and be sure to check out his content over at Just Blog Baby!