Raiders vs. Chiefs: Top 5 plays from Kansas City’s win

Here is our countdown of our five favorite plays from the Kansas City Chiefs win over the Oakland Raiders on Sunday afternoon.

The Kansas City Chiefs did exactly what they had to do against the Oakland Raiders in a 40-9 win in Week 13. They dominated in all three phases of the game, and even as Patrick Mahomes had a frustrating day due to high winds and poor drops, he still did plenty enough to move the chains.

Our favorite plays from the day show just how dominant the Chiefs were on defense. Let’s take a look at the biggest heroes on Sunday afternoon.

1. Juan Thornhill’s Pick-Six

There are so many puns every game. Take your pick.

“You’re the Juan I love.”

“What a Juanderful play.” 

You get the drift. It’s basically our way of reaching out to the Chiefs rookie safety and telling him just how much we appreciate what he can do on the field. His second career interception came at a great time in the second quarter and helped put the Raiders away before halftime with a score of 21-0.  Check out this pick-six against Derek Carr.

The communication between Tyrann Mathieu and Thornhill is getting better with each passing week, and this tandem could be among the NFL’s best by season’s end.

2. Mahomes, dual-threat QB

For all the talk about Lamar Jackson this year, the spotlight is back on dual-threat quarterbacks in the NFL and the challenges they present. Unfortunately for Mahomes, he’s been unable to showcase his running abilities this season due to injuries to both his ankle and knee suffered in the first half of the year.

Now, however, after the bye, it’s clear that Mahomes is back to 100 percent. On this particular play, the Raiders secondary does a decent job keeping receivers covered but Mahomes has a way to make defense’s pay for leaving him too open.

It was Mahomes’ first rushing touchdown of the year, but don’t be surprised if he adds another 1-2 before season’s end.

3. Honey Badger’s INT

He’s been the Chiefs single best defender all year (especially since Chris Jones missed a few games) and Tyrann Mathieu continues to come up big for the Chiefs as the season wears on. For a player who has made only one Pro Bowl in his career, he certainly looks like he’s ready to earn his second such honor in 2019. Check out the instincts here:

4. Raiders stopped on 4th-and-1

We’ve already brought up Thornhill’s biggest play, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t also include Thornhill’s incredible stop on a fourth-and-1 that set the tone early for the Chiefs defense. The Chiefs took their licks for allowing so many yards from Joshua Jacobs, but the Chiefs came up big in a few key moments to stop the Raiders when it mattered the most.

Check out the work by Thornhill to stop the Raiders cold on this play when they had every reason to feel confident in their ability to run the football for a single yard for a conversion.

5. Darrel Williams opening TD

It’s not the sexiest play of the day by any means, but it set the tone early by putting the Chiefs on top 7-0 in a game in which they’d never look back.

Given the fact that Darrel Williams might be out for some time with an injury (details forthcoming), we wanted to make sure to at least give him a highlight here.