Raiders’ defense proves to be cure for Chiefs’ struggles

The Raiders defense made the Chiefs look like the Chiefs again.

One of the most explosive offenses the league has ever seen over the past few seasons, this year’s Kansas City offense limped into Allegiant Stadium on Sunday night battered, bruised and facing questions of whether the league had figured them out.

The Chiefs found the cure in Raiders defensive coordinator Gus Bradley’s unit en route to a 41-14 victory and left the stadium with a bounce in its step and an outright lead in the AFC West.

Patrick Mahomes was averaging just 216 yards per game during his last three games while throwing two touchdowns and two interceptions. Sunday night? The superstar quarterback racked up 406 yards and five touchdowns in a very efficient victory.

“Way too many explosive plays on defense and not enough on offense,” Raiders interim coach Rich Bisaccia said. “And I think uncharacteristically we didn’t tackle very well, which we’ve been doing as of late.”

The Chiefs were forced to punt on their first drive and took a knee to end the game. In between, their eight possessions resulted in five touchdowns, two field goals and a missed kick.

Kansas City went 9-for-15 on third downs and 3-for-3 on fourth downs. It had 12 plays of 15 or more yards and a season-high 23 first downs.

It was the kind of vintage performance the Raiders knew was a possibility, but hoped wouldn’t come to fruition.

The Chiefs’ offensive eruption started up front as the Raiders’ defensive line was unable to generate much of a pass rush.

Maxx Crosby, one of the NFL’s most consistent edge defenders this season, was somewhat neutralized by former college teammate Andrew Wylie, a backup guard who was pressed into action outside because the Chiefs’ top two right tackles were unavailable.

“There’s a lot of things to improve on,” said Crosby, who had a team-high six pressures. “We just have to be better. We didn’t play well tonight. We know that. We have to bounce back and get ready for Cincinnati.

“We just have to tackle better, rush better, just be better.”

According to Next Gen Stats, Mahomes faced pressure on just 11 of his 50 dropbacks. The 22 percent rate marked the first time this year the Raiders finished a game under 30 percent.

Bisaccia credited Mahomes with at least some of that.

“Obviously, he’s tough to get to,” Bisaccia said. “We knew that going into the game. We talked about how explosive they are on offense and he gets rid of the ball in a hurry and can drop real deep.

“I thought we had good pass rush all day, we just couldn’t get our hands on him. Couldn’t get to him. He can always extend plays whether it’s third down or during a course of a series of downs, which he did tonight and got himself in great positions in and out of the pocket to make plays downfield.”

The lack of pressure allowed Mahomes to pick apart a secondary that looked overmatched along with the linebackers that were often part of the coverage plan against star tight end Travis Kelce and running back Darrel Williams.

Kelce finished with eight catches for 119 yards. Williams had nine for 101 and a touchdown.

Tyreek Hill scored twice through the air.

The main issue in the first half was covering Kelce, who had seven catches for 89 yards before intermission.

“I know he had a big day,” Bisaccia said. “He’s been a pain in the Raiders’ side for a long time and credit to them. They did a good job getting him in position to make a lot of plays today, so we have to get that figured out.”

Much of the league thought they had Kansas City figured out at least to some extent. The blueprint laid out by the Buccaneers in last year’s Super Bowl has been followed by opponents throughout this season.

Bradley often stuck with the Raiders’ more familiar Cover 3 look, but even when he didn’t Mahomes showed the discipline to throw underneath and move the ball patiently down the field.

“We have to get stops on key downs and we have to get turnovers,” Crosby said. “We just have to keep getting better.”

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.