OAKLAND, Calif. -- Few outside the walls of Silver and Blackdom expected the rebuilding Oakland Raiders to actually, you know, beat the high-flying Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. But after Monday night's exhilarating victory over the Denver Broncos and a good week of practice, throwing a scare at reigning league MVP Patrick Mahomes & Co. seemed doable. Such was the case ... for 15 minutes.
Because after taking a 10-0 lead, the wheels fell off, and Mahomes, well, he took off in the second quarter, slicing and dicing an already suspect Raiders secondary en route to a 28-10 Chiefs victory. It was a bad taste to leave in the mouths of the Oakland faithful, what with the Raiders not playing again in the East Bay until Nov. 3.
QB breakdown: A hot start and a cool finish best summed up the day for Derek Carr, who deftly directed Oakland's offense to a pair of scoring drives on its first two possessions. He then ended consecutive third-quarter drives with interceptions, including one in the end zone on first-and-goal from the 4-yard line. On the positive side of things, Carr did surpass late Hall of Famer Ken Stabler as the franchise's all-time passing yards leader. Carr, who was 23-of-38 for 198 yards with a TD and the two picks, finished the day sitting at 19,196 career yards, while Stabler had 19,078 for Oakland.
Selling a breakout performance: Yeah, it was a bummer for the Raiders to lose rookie first-round safety Johnathan Abram to injured reserve this week with a shoulder injury. And you got the sense that the Raiders' secondary would be a sort of patchwork outfit without him, even if he has played all of one game in the NFL. Mahomes absolutely torched the Oakland secondary in the second quarter, throwing for 278 yards. His last five first-half passes: a 42-yard TD to Mecole Hardman, 32 yards to Damien Williams, 43 yards to Demarcus Robinson, a 27-yard TD to Travis Kelce and a 39-yard TD to Robinson. Yeah, the Raiders, who have two first-round picks next year, might want to kick around the notion of Minkah Fitzpatrick.
Pivotal play: Riding momentum and holding the 10-7 lead, the Raiders faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 46-yard line early in the second quarter. Rather than be aggressive, Oakland punted. Mahomes then ripped scoring drives of 95 and 94 yards the next two times he touched the ball, then threw the 39-yard touchdown pass to Robinson on the first play of the third drive. Ballgame.
Promising trend: Running back Josh Jacobs is legit. And then some. But his workload will be monitored. All the rookie first-rounder did was rumble for 99 yards on 12 carries, including a 51-yard gallop up the right sideline the first time he touched the ball in the second half. Jacobs, who was never a true feature back at Alabama (he never carried the ball more than 20 times in any college game and had just 251 career carries), had 12 touches against the Chiefs, a week after having 24 against the Broncos.