KC Chiefs: Both sides of the ball played poorly in loss to Raiders

The KC Chiefs lost to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday and simply didn’t play well against their division rival.

The Kansas City Chiefs were able to turn things around near the end of the regular season last year and went on to win the Super Bowl because their defense started to play well. They prided themselves on that in the first month of this season, talking the talk in their first four games, but didn’t walk the walk against the 2-2 Raiders.

Derek Carr isn’t a good quarterback and has been especially bad at Arrowhead Stadium since he entered the league in 2014 yet he did just about whatever he wanted to on Sunday. He finally had a good game in Kansas City, despite an early interception, and time and time again the Raiders were able to torch the Chiefs deep and pop off a big play.

While the defense is certainly partially to blame for the loss, football is a team sport, so the offense deserves a fair share of blame too. After smoking the Raiders D in the first half, the Chiefs offense did next to nothing in the second half. It’s hard to win games when your offense can’t score points, especially against a Raiders defense that had been getting taken advantage of in most games this year.

While Patrick Mahomes did make mind blowing plays in the first half of this game, he couldn’t keep that magic going in the second half. He’s also been particularly dominant against the Raiders in his career to this point, sitting at 4-0 against them prior to this loss. A late interception essentially sealed the game, as it aided the Raiders to go up 40-24 late in the fourth quarter.

The KC Chiefs weren’t clicking against the Raiders and they suffered their first loss as a result.

This defense really did look like the Bob Sutton-led defense we had in 2018. They didn’t get pressure on Carr, they couldn’t stay with receivers, and they couldn’t stop the run. At one point, Tyrann Mathieu just threw his hands up in the air and that’s never a good sign. It was just one of those days.

Look, at some point, the Chiefs were going to lose to the Raiders because that’s just the way things are. Any given Sunday is a common statement for a reason and that’s because any team can force an upset and steal a win and props to the Raiders for doing just that. Las Vegas is now 1-0 against the Chiefs in their new town and this is a game the Chiefs are going to look back on and cringe at because not much went well for them.

The defense was the most concerning aspect because we had seen them look like a Super Bowl caliber unit to this point and they didn’t look like that at all this week. Heck, the defense was to thank for the win vs New England just six days ago, so for them to drop off this much in less than a week is pretty concerning. Maybe they were tired or maybe the Raiders had a good game plan against them.

It’s just one game, but the Kansas City Chiefs have a lot to work on between now and their (as of now) Monday afternoon game against the undefeated Buffalo Bills. It’s going to be a long week after this embarrassing loss.