The Las Vegas Raiders handed the Kansas City Chiefs their only loss of the 2020 season so far, a 40-32 upset in Week 5. October 11, 2020, was the first time the Raiders had beaten the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium since 2012. It was also the only time this year where the Chiefs defense allowed an opponent to score more than 21 points and tally up 490 yards of total offense.
The Raiders had devised a perfect gameplan in order to beat Kansas City, and they did so on both sides of the football.
On offense, they gave the Chiefs a taste of their own medicine by relying on the passing game to get the job done. The Raiders ran the ball seldomly as Derek Carr passed for 347 yards and three touchdowns and completed a pass to 11 different receivers. On defense, the Raiders rushed four down linemen after Patrick Mahomes and took away passing lanes by sending the rest of their defense deep in pass coverage.
While Mahomes was still able to throw for 340 yards and two touchdowns, he was sacked three times, threw one interception, and led only one scoring drive in the second half. The end result was Las Vegas enjoying one of the biggest upsets of the 2020 NFL season thus far.
But of course, the Raiders had to take things a step further by having the team bus do a victory lap around Arrowhead Stadium before heading to the airport. That was more than a month ago, but as the Chiefs get ready for the rematch against their biggest rival, it’s clear they’ll be using the postgame antics from the Silver and Black as fuel to help avenge their lone defeat.
Head Coach Andy Reid told reporters on Monday he won’t match the same level of intensity nor resort to similar antics if his guys collect the victory on Sunday.
“They won the game, so they can do anything they want to do,” Reid said. “That’s not our style, but we’ll get ourselves back and ready to play,” he explained. “That’s where we’re at.”
Reid was later asked who had the advantage going into this week’s matchup.
“I think they [do] or they wouldn’t have driven the bus around the stadium,” he said.
In Vegas, Raiders’ Head Coach Jon Gruden was also asked about what led to the decision to do the victory lap and was clearly annoyed by the question. However, Gruden proposed that the main reason was to rub it in the face of the team’s bus driver, who happened to be a Chiefs fan.
“Whenever you can find the smart-aleck bus driver in Kansas City who made some snide comments when we got on the bus, maybe that’s why we drove around the stadium – just to tick him off. This is ridiculous. Next question,” he raged.
Whether Gruden’s explanation is the true reason or not, we may never know. However, it does seem like he’s more ticked off about the victory lap than Andy Reid is. Whatever the true reason actually is, who would’ve thought that something as tame as a victory celebration would be what this rivalry needed to get things heating back up?
Chiefs/Raiders was a matchup once known for big games, high stakes, hard hits, and extracurricular activity that displayed the true distaste both clubs had for one another. While we may never see the rivalry return to the level it was at during the old AFL days, it’s good to see that the hate is alive and well.
