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.
A strong defense
The Chiefs defense finally played like they cared on Sunday. They still gave up a few plays here and there, but the most encouraging sign was that they had some fire in them that had been sorely missing lately. Maybe the benching of Marcus Peters sent a message to the rest of the team. Maybe getting obliterated by Josh McCown and the New York Jets last week was the last straw for some of these guys. Maybe someone like the injured Eric Berry spoke up and said enough is enough. I don’t know what it was, but there was clearly a different mentality on defense this week.
The Chiefs got after Derek Carr consistently even without sending a lot of extra guys. With the exception of one long Marshawn Lynch touchdown run the Chiefs stuffed the run all day long. The Chiefs starting corners Steven Nelson and Terrance Mitchell rose to the challenge and played tight and aggressive coverage on the Raiders wideouts all day long. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was a defense that the Chiefs can certainly build off of, especially if the offense can just put some points on the board.
The Chiefs problem during their AWFUL 1-6 stretch wasn’t that the offense NEVER played well or that the defense NEVER played well. The problem was that in every single game one of the two were terrible. Sunday was the first time that both sides of the ball were decent (not even great, just decent) in the same game, and that’s why the Chiefs finally found themselves back in the win column.
Moving forward
So can K.C. build off this win and turn their season around? They had a 5-0 stretch to start the season and a 1-6 stretch in the middle of it. Is a 4-0 finish to the season impossible? No, it’s not impossible, but given how much awful football we’ve seen in that middle of the season they have a lot still to prove before most Chiefs fans will have any kind of excitement about the playoffs, even if the Chiefs hold on to the AFC West.
The biggest game of their season is Saturday night showdown with the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers are one of the hottest teams in football and have played themselves out of an 0-4 start to the season. Now they are just a win on Saturday away from taking complete control of the division. If the Chiefs want to send a message to their fans and the rest of the NFL (maybe even to themselves), they MUST beat the Chargers on Saturday. Period.
I don’t care what kind of tie breakers and possible scenarios are out there for how the Chiefs can still win the AFC West if they lose to the Chargers. As far as I’m concerned if they lose Saturday, it’s over. The Chargers would be on a 8-2 streak with a game lead over the Chiefs with games against the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders left on their schedule. On the other hand, if the Chiefs win then they have a one game lead with two games to play and will have swept the Chargers head to head. The Chiefs would be looking at a home game against the Miami Dolphins and a game at the quarterback deficient Denver Broncos as the lone obstacles to a respectable 10-6 record and a home playoff game.
The Chiefs are such a mystery this season that who knows what to expect. Would I be shocked if they won out and got some of their mojo from the beginning of the season back? No, I wouldn’t. Would I be shocked if the Chargers came into Arrowhead and won by a couple of scores and then the Chiefs drop another to the Dolphins and by week 17 we’re looking at Patrick Mahomes starting his first game? Nope, wouldn’t be shocked by that either.
Next: Lessons learned from Week 14
The problem is that the Chiefs are an incredibly talented and incredibly inconsistent team. They can beat anyone. They can lose to anyone. On Sunday they did enough on both sides of the ball to beat a division rival that was playing for their playoff lives. Hopefully they do the same thing again on Saturday. If they do they may just have salvaged what was starting to look like a completely lost season.
As always, thanks for reading and GO CHIEFS!!!