Oakland Raiders: A Few Keys To Victory Over Kansas City Chiefs
By Kevin Saito
Get Out of the Gates Fast
The Raiders have one of the most dynamic and electric offenses in the league. They currently check in with the league’s fourth best offense, averaging a tick under 392 yards per game. As of now, only Atlanta, Dallas, and Carolina are better.
The problem though, is that Oakland’s offense has a bad habit of looking slow and out of rhythm for long periods of the game. Especially at the start of a game.
Against San Diego last week, the Raiders offense couldn’t establish any sort of rhythm or consistency and entered the halftime break having scored just nine points on three Sebastian Janikowski field goals. For most of the first half, the offense looked somewhat disjointed and out of sync.
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Of course, they came out firing after halftime where they put up 25 of their 34 points and gained most of their yardage. But the Raiders need to get out of the habit of starting slow and out of sync. Against the Chiefs, Derek Carr and company must come out in rhythm and start fast.
They are also going to need to learn to extend drives a little better and more efficiently than they do. Currently, the Raiders rank in the bottom half of the league in three-and-out percentage.
Oakland needs to come out of the gates strong and fast against Kansas City. They need to establish their rhythm and dictate the pace of the game rather than letting a team hang around until the bitter end.
If the Raiders can come out swinging early and land a few solid shots, they might just be surprised to find that some teams are unable to pick themselves up off the mat.