Through the first five games of this season, the Raiders seemed to be playing with house money. Giving up a lot of points only to have the offense make a late comeback to pull it out. That caught up to them Sunday facing a well-prepared Chiefs team coming off a bye week.
What was a close game at half time, didn’t remain that way for long. The Chiefs took a 13-10 lead into the third quarter and promptly added to it with a touchdown drive. They would add two more field goals in the second half while shutting out the Raiders the rest of the way to leave Oakland with a convincing 26-10 win.
Even with the close game at the half, the Raiders weren’t looking good. It was a big kick return to start things off that gave them a short field to score their opening touchdown. Then the offense went cold and didn’t score again until the final seconds of the first half. At that point, there was one player who stood out significantly…
Ballers
Amari Cooper
In that first half alone, he had nine catches on nine targets for 117 yards. Three of those catches came alone the sideline where he showed he had been working hard to fix his issues with keeping his feet inbounds. Those issues had the Raiders leave a couple touchdowns on the field the previous week against the Chargers.
With just 46 yards to paydirt on the opening drive, Amari Cooper picked up 41 of those yards on three catches (11, 19, 11). The touchdown went to Andre Holmes from four yards out to give the Raiders a 7-0 lead early. Cooper’s impressive day would continue, but not much else.
His next catch went for 13 yards which set up Sebastian Janikowski for a 52-yard field goal, but it would miss wide left. The following drive he started with a 12-yard catch, then a 24-yard grab, dragging his feet inbounds along the left sideline. Unfortunately the Raiders would get not farther and have to punt.
With :25 seconds left in the half, the Raiders got the ball back. The first two passes went to Cooper for 9 and 15 yards. He got out of bounds on the second catch to stop the clock with :14 seconds left and the ball in Kansas City territory at the 48. A 20-yard completion to Clive Walford and a spike would allow Janikowski to come out and hit a 46-yard field goal to head to the locker room down 13-10 at the half.
After half time, suddenly Derek Carr couldn’t find Cooper. He would see four more targets, with just one more catch. It came in the fourth quarter with the Chiefs already up 26-10. Cooper would finish with 129 yards receiving which is actually a bit disappointing considering how he started the game.
Honorable Mention
Khalil Mack – Had a sack, a tackle for loss, and was third on the team with 7 tackles (5 solo).
DeAndre Washington – He wasn’t getting many clear running lanes, forcing him to do a lot of improvising, but still managed 49 yards on 10 carries (4.9 ypc). He also recovered the Derek Carr bobbled snap.
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