Bummed Chiefs lost to Raiders? Here’s why your hopes of running it back remain intact
Through 13 straight victories, including their first Super Bowl triumph in 50 years, the Chiefs sure had begun to appear draped in a cloak of invincibility, hadn’t they?
Between Patrick Mahomes making virtually all things seem possible, still, and a defense that by all indications had morphed from suspect to select, with victories over their apparent top competition in the AFC (Baltimore) and the dynastic force of the recent past (New England), it was easy to picture a dominant regular-season march toward a repeat, or even harbor visions of an unscathed season.
But a 40-32 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium punctured that aura, both in terms of the result itself and the implications of a game marked by a Raiders scoring binge and an anemic second-half offensive effort by the Chiefs.
The wake-up call, if it indeed proves to resound as such, surely stung all the more because it was administered by the Raiders, who had lost 11 of their last 12 against the Chiefs.
In the process, they exposed issues in the Chiefs’ secondary (at least in terms of communication, if not more broadly) that had seemed well-resolved. And they reminded that Mahomes can be rendered human on a day when his final numbers (22 of 43 for 340 yards) were more palatable because of a final score that proved to be too little too late.
It’s a bummer. But a defeat might also be understood as an inevitability in the NFL, which hasn’t allowed a team to win every game since the 1972 Miami Dolphins.
And the frustration comes with some worthy disclaimers, starting with broader context:
A year ago after a parallel 4-0 start, the Chiefs lost their fifth game … and their sixth game … and a week later Mahomes crumpled in a heap with a knee injury at Denver, his season appearing in jeopardy.
Turned out OK.
And something else remains evident: In a game that featured two touchdowns called back on penalties (and a lightning strike from Mahomes to Tyreek Hill broken up on a blatant interference left uncalled), in a game marked by blown coverages and missed tackles and Chiefs penalties (10 for 94 yards), it’s fair to say the Chiefs created plenty of their own issues.
None of which is to say the Raiders didn’t deserve the win, particularly given how they seemed to control both lines of scrimmage.
But all of which is to say that this truth seems to remain clear about the Chiefs: They still are their own most pivotal opponent, still equipped to beat anyone playing at their considerable best.
“If we don’t play at a high-enough level against good football teams, then you’re going to lose games,” Mahomes said.
While that’s reassuring in some ways, it begs a question: If they’re sufficient to stand and free to fall, where do they go from here?
“We’ll learn from it,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said, adding that the locker room will be motivated by Sunday’s outcome. “We won’t ever forget this day.”
Part of what should be remembered is that the Chiefs, known for their comebacks over the last few seasons, were on the verge of having a commanding lead before the Raiders rallied.
In fact, the game had the earmarks of being just the latest entry in the tale of a fading rivalry contrasted with a Chiefs team building momentum in a quest to win back-to-back Super Bowls at the ongoing expense of another AFC West rival.
The Chiefs, after all, had established a certain baseline the last few years by winning 30 of their last 33 games in the division, including that 11 of the last 12 against the Raiders.
Part of the trend, and formula, had been the routine miscues of Raiders quarterback Derek Carr.
In his career against all other NFL teams, Carr has thrown 136 touchdown passes against 48 interceptions. But he’d been confounded by the Chiefs, who in 12 previous games against him had intercepted him 13 times while allowing 15 TD passes.
His 14th career interception against the Chiefs, plucked by Bashaud Breeland playing in his first 2020 game after serving a four-game suspension, set up Tyreek Hill’s 10-yard touchdown run that gave the Chiefs a 14-3 lead.
The route to another rout for the Chiefs seemed clear and present.
Except any resemblance between the prologue of the recent past and the reality of the day was purely coincidental.
As it happened, Carr simply shrugged off the poor throw and dissected a Chiefs defense that had been so potent for so long.
Was it because the Chiefs couldn’t muster much pressure? Or was it because Raiders receivers were so open so fast?
Perhaps that was a chicken-and-egg matter, or a bit of both.
But the result was jarring enough to leave you pondering how much this defense could be exploited going forward after it seemed to have become an asset to count on.
Through the 13-game winning streak, only one team had scored more than 24 points against the Chiefs — and the Raiders had that many by halftime when it was tied 24-24.
By the time the Raiders had finished dominating much of the second half, Carr had thrown for 347 yards and three touchdowns to stand in stark contrast to Mahomes for most of the day.
Mahomes being Mahomes, he still conjured a plausible rallying point even when the Raiders took a 40-24 lead after he finally threw his first interception of the season.
But after his touchdown pass to Travis Kelce and 2-point conversion toss to Darrel Williams cut it to 40-32 with 3 minutes 57 seconds left, the Chiefs’ defense couldn’t stop Carr’s quarterback sneak on fourth and 1 at midfield following the 2-minute warning.
Despite the Chiefs amassing 32 points, that ending also served to illuminate the fact that the Raiders had stifled the Chiefs virtually the entire second half other than that last scoring drive.
A bad day, really. But if the Chiefs use this right, between further psychological motivation and some scrubbing up of trouble spots, this game has a chance to be little more than an asterisk in an abundantly promising season. Here’s betting that’s how it plays out.
This story was originally published October 11, 2020 at 4:46 PM.