Everything goes wrong for Raiders in shutout loss to Chiefs

KANSAS CITY—If there was ever a game that embodied the phrase ‘burn the tape,’ this was it for the Las Vegas Raiders.

On Sunday, the Raiders ran headfirst into a buzzsaw, suffering a blowout loss to the Kansas City Chiefs 31-0 at GEHA Stadium at Arrowhead.

This was not the way the Raiders wanted to head into the bye week. Now, they can only hope to get back to full health while the team assesses what has gone wrong in this first half of the season. This is on top of the rest of the NFL circling the Raiders like vultures, wondering if they can extract anything of value from a team that appears to have fallen out of the playoff hunt.

Here are some of the major takeaways from a game the Raiders will love to forget soon.

Pick your poison

When Patrick Mahomes has over 200 yards and three touchdowns by the end of the first half, that is more than enough to realize how rough of a day it was for the Raiders defense.

The Raiders could do nothing to stop the returning Rashee Rice, who caught a game-high seven receptions for 42 yards and two touchdowns. It was not just Rice who benefitted from the pass-happy Chiefs offense, as six total Chiefs went for over 30 receiving yards on the day. Virtually nothing went right for the Raiders secondary, and they head into the bye week with serious work to do to fix the back end.

Offense goes offline

Everything tends to go wrong in blowout losses, and the Raiders offense did little to stop the bleeding.

The only Raider to finish with more than two receptions was Tre Tucker, who is at least continuing to develop a good rapport with Geno Smith. It did not help the Raiders overall, however, as they finished the day with less than 100 yards total offense and failing to convert a single third or fourth down. It was unsurprising to see the offense struggle without Brock Bowers or Jakobi Meyers, but the extent of the issues was admittedly a shock to see.

Numbers don’t lie

Every single statistic did not just favor the Chiefs in this matchup, but were tilted in near-hilarious fashion.

The Chiefs soundly trounced the Raiders in first downs by a total of 30-3. Whereas the Raiders failed to convert a third or fourth down, the Chiefs went nine-for-15 on third downs and one of their two fourth down attempts. The Chiefs put up 434 total yards of offense compared to the Raiders’ 95, outproducing the opponent over four times to one for those doing the math.