The Morning After: Raiders vs Chiefs

The Oakland Raiders played a really, really bad game. Has there ever been a worse game played where the Raiders had scored 31 points? When you score 31 points you expect a win, and if not a win then a close loss. This was an absolute blowout though, a complete travesty of an absolute blowout.

The Raiders defense should be ashamed of themselves for this game. Everybody in the world knew that the Chiefs were going to get Jamaal Charles involved as much as possible, yet they didn't cover him twice on screen passes? The second screen pass that went for a long TD was on 3rd and 19, what is the most common play on a 3rd and long? A screen pass!

The defense was constantly put in very tough positions in this game though. The Chiefs had seven TD's in this game and 5 of them came on drives starting on the Raiders side of the field. That includes three of the touchdown drives starting within the Raiders 30 yard line with them starting at the 28, 16, and 11 yard lines. No wonder the defense had nothing left to give by the end of this game, every time they turned around they were up against the wall.

Matt McGloin was just terrible in this game, though he still even in the worst game he has played had moments of stellar play. There is no way around it though, when you have 5 turnovers yourself in a game that was a terrible performance.

After the game you would like to see some contrition about the way he played this game. Instead he just blew off the bad decisions by claiming that “some players do it” with his against the grain of his body throws. He is absolutely right, some people can do it, but no matter who it is that does it they have big mistakes that happen because of doing it. Once in awhile is one thing, but consistently throwing across your body will only create games like this.

The funny thing is that it ALMOST would have been better not to have the stretch where the Raiders came back in this one. They were down 21-3 at one point but managed to make a game of it by coming back to a 35-31 deficit. Once that happened, the defense had to step up. Instead, they let Jamaal Charles again victimize them in the passing game for a 71 yard touchdown.

Outstanding. RT @BrianMFloyd: The framing of this photo is just superb (via Getty) pic.twitter.com/hE6uxNpQz5

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) December 16, 2013

That play was unforgivable to me. He had defenders covering him, but they were so far off that once Charles caught the ball all he had to do was turn and go for the TD. The offense who had made a ton of mistakes already just got the team back into the game, you just can not let a big play happen like that to eliminate all the good feelings that were just created.

Then to make matters worst that next kickoff was fumbled. Once again, you absolutely can not make a mistake like that when the offense just put together a 21 point swing for the team. I appreciate that Taiwan Jones was just trying to make a play, but you can not lose the ball in that circumstance. There is no excuse good enough for that, the team just made a run to get the game back in reach and not 2 minutes later the game was once again a blowout.

The irony of Oakland's first defensive coach since John Madden giving up the most points all time is palpable. Dennis Allen was hired to create a better defense, and that defense in his second year just gave up the most points in team history. How can anybody defend that fact? You can say the coach can only do so much and that it is up to the players there, but that would have been the case for every other coach in Raiders history too.

That this performance came against the Kansas City Chiefs is another point of disgust. This is a historical rivalry and it means more than any other game because of that. This is the performance you are going to give us in THIS game? The team just gave the Chiefs bragging rights for the most points ever scored on the Oakland Raiders. That they gave up the most points in franchise history is bad enough, that they did so in a game against the Kansas City makes fans want to curl up into a ball and forget football exists.

One thing that has become painfully clear to most people, the Raiders will be adding a quarterback next year. Matt McGloin will get his chance to compete with the QB brought in, but another viable starting option has to be brought in. You can not trust that McGloin is the answer enough to go into next year with him as the unquestioned starter.

Terrelle Pryor will be there too, he will get his chance to show if he can make a big jump again as well. He will need to show another gigantic step forward to be a viable option to compete against McGloin though and they wont know if he has at the time of Free Agency and the draft and that is why it is clear the Raiders will have to bring somebody else in.

There are two positives worth pointing out strictly for entertainment value. One is Rashad Jennings, who had another very good performance as the starter, jumping into the Black Hole right into the arms of Gorilla Rilla. That was an awesome moment for the Raiders and their fans even if it did come in this travesty of a game.

The other thing I would like to point out is that the Raiderettes looked extra beautiful in this one! They always are beautiful but they were especially so yesterday. It could be that I am just a really big fan of Christmas.

It is on to the Chargers now and for Dennis Allen's sake his team needs to play better. There are many reasons to want his exit now from the team despite the need to be patient and consistent. This historically bad beat down by the Chiefs is another reason on the tab of mistakes by Dennis, he can not afford to be embarrassed again by another rival.