Raiders at Chiefs gameday open thread

These two teams always play a good game. Both sides have a few things going for them in this one.

The Raiders win the quarterback battle hands down with Carson Palmer in firm control of the Raiders offense. The Chiefs benched the struggling Matt Cassel and replaced him with the only-overrated-when-he-is-actually-rated Brady Quinn.

The Chiefs win the running back battle easily. One could argue Darren McFadden might be the better running back but not on this team in this scheme. He is dead in the water. On the other hand, Jamaal Charles is a shot ready to be fired on every snap. Like Russian roulette.

The Raiders have been handling things on the defensive side of the ball of late considerably better than the Chiefs even though on paper the Chiefs should have the superior defense.

That underachieving Chiefs defense could be lying in the weeds waiting to pounce and the two weeks they have had to prepare for the Raiders could be just the trap they need to spring. The Raiders nearly got knocked off their feet last week against the Jaguars for that very reason. They too were coming off a bye week and were ready for what the Raiders threw at them. The result was a 20-6 deficit before the Raiders wised up and came back to win it in overtime.

Raiders inactives: QB Terrelle Pryor, RB Taiwan Jones, CB Shawntae Spencer, LB Travis Goethel, RT Khalif Barnes, OL Lucas Nix, DE Jack Crawford.

Chiefs inactives: QB Ricky Stanzi, WR Devon Wylie, DB Tysyn Hartman, C Bryan Mattison, DE Glenn Dorsey, TE Steve Maneri.

I expect there will be plenty to talk/yell about during this game so let's get it started and keep it going and I will be back with a new thread for the second half.