Raiders have an unconventional work week ahead starting with preparing for Chiefs who they don’t play until finale

Christmas is coming. Combine that with the Raiders playing the Broncos on Monday Night Football — which falls on Christmas Eve — and the Raiders are moving some things around, making for a bit of an unconventional approach to their final two games.

For starters, it means looking ahead to two weeks from now when the Raiders head to Kansas City for the season finale.

“With the extra day and the holiday coming, we’ll use today to focus on the Kansas City Chiefs,” Gruden said Monday. “Tuesday and Wednesday, we will work on the Broncos. We’ll get the players back tomorrow and we’ll start practicing for Denver on Thursday. So, we’ll give the players an extra day to recover and we’re excited to finish the season.”

Usually Monday is for looking at their next opponent. But the Raiders have a long week this week. Next week is when it gets crazy and Gruden is trying to get ahead of it.

Next week, they not only have a short week because of Monday Night Football, but the players and coaches would like to have Christmas with their families instead of jumping right back into preparing for the next opponent as would typically be the case with a short week.

Gruden’s thinking is if they can get the film study for the Chiefs out of the way today, that will be one less thing the staff has to do next week.

It’s a rather unique situation that can be tough to prepare for, so it’s anyone’s guess what the correct approach is.