Raiders Stomp Chiefs, Still Don’t Make Playoffs
The Kansas City Chiefs, despite losing to the Oakland Raiders Sunday 31 to 10 are still the AFC West Champions and will still go to the playoffs while the Oakland Raiders watch from home or the golf course.
In all seriousness, congratulations to the Oakland Raiders on playing out their season hard and returning to .500 after multiple losing seasons.
The Chiefs, on the other hand, laid an egg after weeks of impressive performances from their offense and QB Matt Cassel.The Chiefs showed their weakness at receiver as the Raiders defensive backs blanketed KC wideouts all day. As a result of their excellent coverage, the Raiders spent most of the day int he backfield, sacking Chiefs’ QB’s 7 times.
Rather than spend an hour trying to construct sentences and paragraphs to describe this weak effort by the Chiefs, I am going to go straight to bullet points.
-Matt Cassel has perhaps his worst game of the season, completing only 11 of 35 passes for 11 yards with no touchdowns and 2 interceptions.
-Jamaal Charles is still good. He carried the ball 14 times for 87 yards and a touchdown.
-Unfortunately for Charles, the Chiefs decided to keep giving the ball to Thomas Jones who was downright terrible, averaging 1.7 yards per carry on 10 carries. Jones also caught a pass for minus 1 yard.
-Dwayne Bowe showed he is the Chiefs only legitimate receiver, pulling in 5 of his 10 targets for 68 yards.
-The Chiefs defense held on for a while but eventually gave up after getting tired of watching the offense stink up the place. They eventually relinquished 209 rushing yards as well as 135 yards through the air.
-The defense did do a good job of getting pressure, sacking Jason Campbell 4 times. It didn’t matter, however, because the Raiders just eventually abandoned passing and ran the ball down KC’s throat.
What it means:
It means the Chiefs lost a game and likely, the #3 seed in the NFL playoffs. With Pittsburgh’s win, the Chiefs will host the Baltimore Ravens next week unless the Colts lose to the Titans in the late game.
Obviously a demoralizing loss is not what the Chiefs wanted heading into their first playoff appearance since 2006. The team will have to regroup, refocus and try to get back to playing physical, fundamental football.
It doesn’t feel good and losing to the Raiders is never reason to celebrate but try to keep your chin up and remember the Kansas City Chiefs are the AFC West Champions and that after winning 10 games in 3 years, everything else is just gravy.