On Thursday night, the biggest game of the NFL season is taking place at Arrowhead Stadium. The 10-2 Oakland Raiders visit the 9-3 Kansas City Chiefs in what could be the deciding game in the race for the AFC West. This game could also have a major effect on the overall playoff seeding for the AFC. This is, without a doubt, the Kansas City Chiefs biggest game of the year.
The Kansas City Chiefs Biggest Game of the Year
The Teams
Coming into the season, most people expected the Oakland Raiders to be better. But no one could have expected them to have won ten games in the first 12 of the season. The Raiders are led by a dynamic offense and quarterback Derek Carr with talented receivers in Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree. The offensive line, which has mostly been built through free agency, is one of the best in the league at protecting his quarterback and opening up running holes running back Latavius Murray.
On the defensive of side of the ball, the star is Khalil Mack. Mack is making a strong push for defensive player of the year and has even garnered himself some talk as the league’s most valuable player. Mack has single-handedly taken control of games for the Raiders the last two weeks against the Carolina Panthers and the Buffalo Bills. Bruce Irvin is another ferocious pass rusher in the Silver and Black, who has caused a lot of problems for opposing team’s quarterbacks. The biggest question mark surrounding the Raiders is their secondary and their run defense. The secondary is missing DJ Hayden, but has gotten relatively good performances from former Chief Sean Smith and David Amerson over the past couple of weeks. The run defense, however, gave up over 200 yards on the ground to the Bills, a game where they were trailing 24-9 but ended up winning 38-24. The defense definitely stepped up in the second half and did not allow Buffalo score in a game that Oakland needed in order to stay atop of the AFC playoff seeding.
This will be Oakland’s first road game since their October 30th overtime win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Including the Thursday night showdown, Oakland has three of the final four games on the road to close out the season.
The Kansas City Chiefs have won back-to-back close games against the Denver Broncos and the Atlanta Falcons. In fact, the Chiefs last four games have been decided by less than three points and the Chiefs are 3-1 in those contests. The Chiefs have beaten the two Super Bowl teams from last season on the road and defeated the NFC South leading Falcons in their house by a score of 29-28..
There are still plenty of questions surrounding the Chiefs offense despite the fact that they are 9-3. The offense only scored 13 points against the Falcons but won thanks to special teams scoring a touchdown on a fake punt and Eric Berry scoring eight points by himself on interception returns. There were times, however, that the offense looked pretty good, moving the ball at will, and Alex Smith had a very good day from behind center. The defense gave up yards but their “bend, don’t break” mentality saved the day for this Chiefs squad.
The Thursday night game with Oakland is the start of a three game home stretch for the Chiefs, where they are 4-1 this season, and 9-1 in their last ten home games.
The Weather
Currently, the forecast for kick off is about 20°. That is very cold for a team coming from Northern California playing in a primetime game. When the Chiefs and Raiders played in week six, the game was played in sloppy, rainy conditions and was won by the Chiefs 26-10. After an opening drive touchdown by the Raiders, the Chiefs defense locked down and held Derek Carr in check for the remainder of the rainy game.
The Rematch
Since the week six game, a lot has changed. The Chiefs have gotten Justin Houston back, who has four sacks in the last two games. Tyreek Hill has become a focal point of the offense and is now third in Chiefs history among receptions for a rookie. Travis Kelce is the only player in the NFL to have three consecutive 100 yard receiving games this season.
For Oakland, the offense has really hit its stride and is averaging 32 points per game in their recent six game winning streak. The defense has performed relatively better, but is still allowing an average of almost 25 points per game, which is 22nd in the league.
The Fallout
If Oakland wins, they will have a stranglehold on the AFC West. The Raiders would have a two game lead over the Chiefs with three to play, essentially locking up the division and a first round bye in the playoffs.
If Kansas City wins, the Chiefs would own all tiebreakers over Oakland and would, at worst, have to finish with the same record as the Raiders in order to secure an AFC West crown and likely claim a first round bye.
Clearly, a lot is at stake this week. It is great to see this stories rivalry mean something again, particularly at one of the most historic venues in all of the league. Arrowhead Stadium will be rocking on Thursday night.
