After a playful and amazing offensive week against the Baltimore Ravens, the Chiefs had quite a struggle last week in Kansas City facing the New England Patriots.
The KC offense had only scored 6 points until late in the third quarter and the defense made most of the day, performing greatly. Patrick Mahomes himself, recognized how helpful was the defense in this last game, even if he added: “A win is a win.”
He is right, not all games are going to be fun to watch and the final result at the end of the season is what really counts.
However, this week against the Las Vegas Raiders, the offensive side of the ball will have to wake up a little bit earlier.
“I don’t think we played our best ball this past weekend,” said Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy on Thursday. “Our guys know that, they feel that. One thing that I will say, I’m proud of the fact that our guys are learning how to find ways to win. They’re learning to strain the finish when things are not perfect.”
“One thing I’m not going to do, there’s no excuses for the lack of performance. Our coaching staff has addressed all of the issues, we will continue to address it, we’re going to continue to coach our guys up, and our guys are energized and they’re ready to come out and redeem themselves. But we understand that we’ve got to focus on the details moving forward.”
This season, the Legion of Zoom has performed well so far, but we noticed less big actions and deep balls. We can remember only a few with Mecole Hardman’s 49-yard touchdown against the Baltimore Ravens and Tyreek Hill’s 54-yard score against the Los Angeles Chargers. Patrick Mahomes got us used to big plays and we have seen less of that type of offensive game in 2020.
The Chiefs have had the edge these past few years against the Raiders, they have dominated the last three matchups with a combined score of 103-22.
However, Las Vegas quarterback Derek Carr is actually playing pretty good football to start the season. Carr has thrown a total of eight touchdowns and many observers feel they could compete against the Kansas City Chiefs to win the AFC West. They had big wins facing the Panthers and Drew Brees’ Saints.
But we can count on Andy Reid, who knows the divisional games are the most important ones of the season, to put his best foot forward during those games. We should expect a more aggressive offensive game against the Las Vegas Raiders.
Taking advantage of a crippled Raiders defense without Maurice Hurst, Kansas City has to begin strong.
The Raiders secondary is also quite young, which could help the Legion of Zoom create some dangerous opportunities with their speed.
You never know, but at home, against the Raiders, the Chiefs should remain undefeated, even if Derek Carr has gained experience and has matured, and could surprise a few times Kansas City defense.
