Inside the Numbers: Kansas City Chiefs at Las Vegas Raiders

Here’s a glance at the stat sheet from the Chiefs’ 35-31 victory at Las Vegas in Week 11.

The Kansas City Chiefs traveled to Las Vegas to exact their revenge from the only blemish on their record this season, a Week 5 loss at home to the Raiders. While this divisional rivalry game went down to the wire, the Chiefs were able to once again remind us why they are the league’s best team.

19-3

With another win coming off the bye week, Andy Reid padded his remarkable legacy with the extra time. Reid has now won 19 of 22 games in his career after the regular season bye week—good for a .863 win percentage. We’re past the point where this could possibly be an anomaly. The Chiefs head coach is clearly adept in his preparation with both his team and staff, and it has also paid off for the Chiefs when they have had bye weeks in the playoffs, too.

571

Per NFL Research, Travis Kelce hauled in his 571st career reception last night, eclipsing former Chief Tony Gonzalez for the 2nd-most by any tight end in their first eight seasons. The next one in line was on the opposing sideline last night in Las Vegas: Jason Witten caught 617 passes in his first eight years in the league. This is even more remarkable when you consider that Kelce missed his entire rookie season with an injury.

371

That’s how many days it had been since running back Le’Veon Bell had scored a touchdown, until his first score in a Chiefs jersey put the Chiefs up 28-24 with just under six minutes to play in the 4th quarter. Bell last hit paydirt in a Jets uniform in Week 11 at Washington in 2019.

1

That’s how many times the Chiefs were able to even get a hit on Raiders quarterback Derek Carr (per Pro Football Reference). The Chiefs finished the night with zero sacks. The lack of pressure from the Chiefs pass rush is an ongoing problem. We knew going into the season that the Raiders are elite at protecting Carr on longer developing plays, but the Chiefs gave them opportunity after opportunity on Sunday night. That cannot continue.

The Chiefs travel to Tampa Bay on Sunday. It will be interesting to see how KC gets after Bucs quarterback Tom Brady, who has only been sacked 14 times this season.

105

Patrick Mahomes‘ 105 yards passing on the run at Las Vegas were the most by a quarterback in any NFL game in 2020, according to NFL.com’s NextGen Stats.

36

The Chiefs racked up 36 first downs on offense, a season high. Their previous high was 29 first downs in Week 3 at Baltimore. It was also the most first downs allowed by the Raiders all season, with the previous high belonging to the Bucs who moved the chains 27 times back in Week 7.

100%

Every score in this game, from the Chiefs or Raiders, resulted in either a lead change or a tie. This was a blow-for-blow heavyweight bout in which no team ever scored consecutive points. In fact, the last six scores of this game were lead changes. The Raiders would score, and the Chiefs would counter. It was the Chiefs who would deliver the final blow. The 2nd quarter red zone stop that resulted in a Raider field goal should not go unnoticed.

And while we’re on the subject of 100%, let’s acknowledge the kicker. This shouldn’t be a number that we spend much time on, however we’ve had a bit of a mind game lately with Harrison Butker and his extra points. Butker finished a healthy 5/5 on the night. Hopefully, Butker was able to work out the kinks through the bye week and we won’t have to address PATs any longer. Sunday night was a great start.