Raiders vs Chiefs Preview Article

VirginiaCavs

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Chucky Has Oakland Keeping Pace With Kansas City's Offense

Raiders vs Chiefs
Sunday, September 15 at 4:05 p.m. ET (CBS) at Coliseum


Odds & Week 1 Recap

There's a wide range in odds for this game, which will encourage backers of both sides to feel like they've got a good number. Some books opened Kansas City as 10-point favorites, while others opened as low as Chiefs -7.5. Currently, the spread is as low as Chiefs -7, while Raider backers can (and should) grab the +9 surviving at 5Dimes.

It's easy, but misleading, to view Kansas City's offense as unstoppable after it dismantled what was a top-five defense last year in Jacksonville. But I think this is the wrong notion to have of the Chiefs' offense because Jacksonville did not play like a top-five defense.

Jacksonville's defense was ridden with youth and inexperience at the linebacker and safety positions and hampered by discipline issues that found expression in 10 penalties and the ejection of its top linebacker. Credit Chief coach Andy Reid for knowing to take advantage as Jaguar defenders repeatedly missed easy tackles, lost their man in coverage, and otherwise looked clueless and inept in ways that had rather little to do with the quality of their opponent

Raiders Win Battle In The Trenches

What I do take away from Kansas City's performance in Week 1 is concern about its lack of pass rush. With a sizable lead that surely made it obvious that Jacksonville would be pass-first and facing a somewhat beleaguered Jacksonville offensive line, the Chiefs' pass rush should have flexed its muscles. It's supposed to be Kansas City's defensive strength. But against the Jags, it mustered only one sack and two quarterback hits.

On the other side, Oakland faced a high-profile Denver pass rush without letting the formidable Bradley Chubb or Von Miller or any other Bronco get a single sack. The Raiders' offensive line proved solid with two-time Pro Bowler Rodney Hudson at center, a healthy Kolton Miller at left tackle, and the massively-sized former Patriot Trent Brown debuting at right tackle.

Oakland's Offense Maintains Balance

A well-known way to keep an opposing offense from finding rhythm is by dominating time of possession. Expect a strong effort from former Alabama running back Josh Jacobs, whose mixture of physicality and elusiveness made him a justified first-round pick. He'll thrive behind Oakland's offensive line against a Kansas City run defense that was one of the worst last year in multiple categories.

In Week 1, Derek Carr looked more like the 2016, MVP-caliber version of himself. He was accurate, read the defense well, and distributed the ball to several different targets at all levels of the field.

Look out for top wide receiver Tyrell Williams because the Chiefs don't have a corner who can match-up with him size-wise. Only Charvarius Ward is even 6'0. At 6'3, Williams also boasts a speedy 4.48 40 time that makes it easy for him to find separation for yearly one of the NFL's most accurate deep passers. He'll thrive downfield and elsewhere against a KC secondary that didn't look any different from last year's 31st-ranked version.

Darren Waller also picked up where departed tight end Jared Cook had left off. Carr loves to throw to his tight end and Waller's combo of athleticism and route-running made him hard for Denver to contain.

Oakland will have an even easier time keeping up with Kansas City's offense because top wide receiver Tyreek Hill is injured. No matter that it faced a harmless Denver offense, the Raider defense didn't look disheveled like Jacksonville's and it won't need to get that many stops in order for Oakland's offense to stay within the spread.


Best Bet: Raiders +9 at -130 odds with 5Dimes
 
I think with Cap and Teed (and others) there's a lot of great discussion to be had. Feel free to agree or disagree, i've said my piece.
 
My thoughts...

Jax didn’t play like a top 5 unit because they played a team that was fully prepared schemewise for them. . Campbell, Allen, Ramsey, Bouye, Jack (before he lost his mind) were all out there. Not many teams have that quality right off the bat. Nonetheless guys were absolutely wide open all game. Jax can’t be given the “theyre Young” treatment and then we bash the KC defense who had 6 new starters, a new DC and a complete new scheme for the first time with on field temps at around 120.

Oakland looked very good against a bad Denver team. Their OL was very much up to the task and their offense looked solid at many points through out the night. Still, multiple times during the game, I felt, “ok, Flacco just needs to drive them down and this is a new game”. And that never happened. Now you eliminate Abram from the D and potentially Conley.

These two teams notoriously play one competitive game a year against each other. And I think Oakland can hang. But like I said about Jax, I do not think they can score enough to keep up and win this game. I most likely will not play it because I think the line is too high (this would be -13 or More at KC by this current line) and I’m not betting on Oakland because Things have a habit of going south quickly in Oaktown.

I’d consider a KC team total over, a full game over, over Kelce yards, over McCoy rush/rec yards and over Waller yards.

If you like playing both sides of the coin, KC ML in parlays and Oak + the points flat could be worth a look. Quality stuff as always VC.
 
Great stuff from you as well, Cap. I will say that Denver only could have felt in reach because Gruden became so conservative with the lead. He was presumably not scared at all of Denver‘s garbage offense. But it kept us from seeing Oakland‘s offense flex some more.
 
That's a great point about the size of the KC dbs vc

Like you say William's is tall, Walker too, I wonder if moreau gets more of a look in the passing game too because of the height

I forget where I heard it a few years ago, but the best teams have dbs kind of like an nba team, ya you need the short speedy point guard type guys to stop burners, but you also need some rangey wingman types against the tall ones. Jax has some size in the passing game and minshew used that to his advantage too

Even without that pos tyreek, the chiefs will score, although Watkins isnt a 1, had a great week but he doesnt have consistency, so kelce will need to have a big game and he will. But in a game I expect to see so high scoring from both sides, the points seem like a good option, backdoor is wide open with this line too if its needed
 
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