Raiders at Chiefs - Week 14 - Record: 7-6

Yes our defense got reeeally soft to allow the Raiders to score twice sandwiching an on-sides kick recovery in the 4th quarter, making things far too dicey for us today. We still pulled off the win playing three quarters (and yeah, a little bit of the 4th quarter) like we thought this team could play.

Yes there are a dozen crappy things we could say about this team and how it still has a long way to go to show it has enough got-it to make a nice winning playoff run, but we've been too shredded by crappy things for weeks and weeks and weeks now. It's time for some good things. Here they are, kind of in some kind of chronological order:

- Tyreek Hill. He had phenomenal catches, a nice punt return when we needed it, and was just all over the field today. After one catch his tremendous balance allowed him to tiptoe against the sideline, regain his position, and try to get more yards. His athleticism is amazing.

- Travis Kelce. The play just before Kareem Hunt scored for our first touchdown was a brilliant call -- a play action screen pass to Kelce that he almost pounded in. Kelce on the day was fantastic -- makes you wonder why we don't throw the ball to him every other play. BTW, just before that was yet another non-pass-interference call against us -- they just can't cover Kelce and half the time the opposing team needs the ref to bail them out.

- Harrison Butker. Four more field goals today, what a find this guy is (haven't we already said this a dozen times before?) Again, sure enough, every one of those kicks was important. And his regular booming kickoffs keep a team from making any meaningful returns.

- Albert Wilson. He made a number of critical plays, including a spectacular sideline catch deftly keeping his feet in bounds. The Chiefs offense hurried to run the next play so it couldn't be challenged, but they didn't have to worry, replays showed Wilson's catch was legit. Wilson also caught a clutch clutch clutch 3rd-&-5 pass very late in that 4th quarter when the Raiders offense was coming alive -- we simply could not give the ball back to them, and Wilson came through catching the crossing underneath route and shedding a tackle to get that first down.

- Terrance Mitchell. Why in the world did we give up on this guy earlier? I never could figure out why they benched him for Kenneth Acker or even -- ::gasp:: -- Phillip Gaines. I imagine he got the call because Marcus Peters was suspended for this game, but Mitchell came up big today a number of times. A nice bat-away, a tough interception off a batted pass, and a terrific defense of a long last-ditch pass at the goal line that Steve Terrell intercepted to end the game.

- Chris Jones. He has been invisible the past few games, but today he lit it up. He was all over the Oakland backfield making sacks and stops and generally aggravating the Raiders players. Our other pass rushers were decent today too, Jarvis Jenkins had a sack, Justin Houston did, maybe a couple others did, that was great.

- Derrick Johnson. He looked a bit like his youthful self at times today. Very nice. In fact, our entire defense played well -- the Raiders offense was completely stuffed for three quarters today and I'd like to think that it was our fine defense that was doing the work, not their surprising ineptitude. In fact my son pointed out that the Raiders offensive line is the highest-paid in the league.

- Laurent Duvernay-Tardif. The O-line played very well today, getting Hunt a 100-yard rushing day. They also gave Alex enough time to make some fine completions mostly to Hill and Kelce, a few to Wilson and others. The funnest thing they did was blow open a very nice hole for Charcandrick West to then zig-zag and power into the end zone for our second touchdown score making it 26-0.

- Dustin Colquitt. What can you say about him? How about this just for today's game. Late in the game he shook off a blocked punt when he got bulldozed by the Raiders rusher, and then he boomed his next one -- 55 yards with no return. There was still lots of time for Oakland to come back to score and get another on-sides kick recovery when Colquitt just demoralized them putting them back at their own 10.

- Luck. Yeah, just plain happy luck. The bounces and bobbles that you've got to have sometimes have just not been going the Chiefs way at all, for a long time. Today we seemed to have the edge in that. Really, let's face it, a lot of enjoying the team of which you're a fan is just enjoying those breaks that go your way and you can feel favored by the gods however that is. Oh that that would happen for us in the playoffs sometime.

I'm sure I didn't mention a number of other players who did amazing things today, but I tried to give credit to some of them in the mentions above. No disrespect -- indeed today's win was a strong team effort. It looked like the Chiefs were fired up to play well today, and it showed.

So yeah, for now, whew, very nice win for once, we're still in first place in the West, yay, and we get to enjoy a week of enjoying that for a while -- that's nice.

We play Los Angeles at home next Saturday, a game that will essentially be for the division title. So yeah so yeah so yeah -- right now we're all BRING IT ON!!!

Something fun to feel for once.
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