Jon Gruden wasn’t ready to evaluate Raiders after loss to Chiefs

Jon Gruden wasn’t ready to evaluate exactly where the Raiders stand in relation to the rest of the NFL just yet.

Jon Gruden is going to need more time before he’s ready to evaluate exactly how his Las Vegas Raiders rank compared to other teams in the NFL. At the very least, he wasn’t ready to answer the question from a reporter following the team’s fourth loss of the season, a home defeat at the hands of the visiting Kansas City Chiefs.

On Sunday night, the Chiefs were able to avenge their only loss of the season in primetime behind some fourth quarter heroics from quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs rallied from behind with just under two minutes left for a touchdown drive that ended with a pass to a wide-open Travis Kelce in the end zone. Shortly thereafter, Derek Carr threw a pass that floated right into the hands of Chiefs safety Dan Sorensen to seal the win.

While the Raiders lost, the game was much closer than most fans outside of Raider Nation believed it would be. In fact, the Chiefs were close to being swept on the season by a Raiders’ team that had averaged a scant 5.4 wins per year for each of the last 17 seasons. Still Gruden wasn’t ready to look for the silver lining just yet. After the game, reporters asked him if he thought the team had closed the margin between the Raiders and the NFL’s elite.

"“It’s hard to swallow right now,” said Gruden to reporters after the game. “I don’t have anything to say about that. I don’t know where we rank, but we’re getting great effort. We gotta get some people back on the field playing. Hopefully we can. We’ve got six or seven more weeks guaranteed to us that we can hopefully take advantage of.”"

Gruden was happy with his team’s effort, to be clear, and he said that immediately in his opening remarks, “As I said, I’m really proud of our team. Congratulations to the Chiefs. They made a couple more plays than we did.” However, it was clear Gruden had no emotional energy left to consider the bigger picture in that moment, just minutes after suffering a stomach punch of a loss with the defending Super Bowl champs on the ropes.

The Raiders moved to 6-4 with the loss and now sit a full three games behind the Chiefs, who are 9-1, in the AFC West.