The Kansas City Chiefs stopped the bleeding with a 26-15 win over the Oakland Raiders on Sunday. Was it the first step in KC getting back on track?
The Kansas City Chiefs finally got back to winning on Sunday as they held off the Oakland Raiders 26-15. It was an up and down game. The Chiefs completely dominated the Raiders for the first three quarters as they built up a 26-0 lead. Still, they couldn’t take advantage in the red zone as often as they would have liked ,and it gave the Raiders a glimmer of hope as they mounted a slight fourth quarter comeback to make the final margin of victory just 11 points.
Alex Smith was good at times and incredibly frustrating at others. The run game got back on track and the defense played with some heart without the benched Marcus Peters. The question going forward now is if this win can bring the Chiefs back to life and help them salvage their season.
The Chiefs have been a bad football team for two months leading up to this win. That’s a lot of bad football to overcome, but the Chiefs at least showed a couple of signs of doing what it takes to right the ship on Sunday. On offense they finally re-established the running game. Before Sunday, Hunt had gone five straight games without surpassing 100 all purpose yards and seven straight games without rushing for over 100 yards. He did both on Sunday as he amassed 116 yards rushing on 25 carries and another 22 yards on three receptions. What’s more, he scored his first touchdown since week three of the NFL season.
The Kansas City Chiefs simply can’t even hope to make the playoffs (let alone compete in them) without a running game. Alex Smith has simply proved to be too inconsistent and at times limited to carry an offense without an effective rushing attack. If the Chiefs want to score points in December and January they have to have a running game. Kareem Hunt needs his offensive line to give him a little space and whomever is calling the plays to commit to the run in order for this team to keep winning. Besides the boost it gives the offense, sticking with Hunt also helps keep the defense fresh, which brings me to the other reason Sunday may have given K.C. fans a little hope going forward.