Oakland Raiders: 7 last-minute predictions ahead of the 2019 season

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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI – DECEMBER 30: Quarterback Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs greets quarterback Derek Carr #4 of the Oakland Raiders after the Chiefs defeated the Raiders 35-3 to win the game at Arrowhead Stadium on December 30, 2018 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) /

4. The Raiders will beat the Chiefs in Kansas City

Anything can happen in divisional games. No matter how good one team looks or how bad another team looks, when you have two divisional rivals come together, all bets are off.

So, fittingly, here’s a bet on the Raiders stealing a game in Kansas City.

It’s hard to predict exactly where the Raiders will be come the first week of December when the silver and black make their way to Kansas City to take on the Chiefs. They could be having a sneaky-good season or could be trying to salvage something headed into 2020.

But even in the latter case, the Raiders might have something to look forward to when they had to Arrowhead Stadium in Week 13. Sure, the Chiefs will be coming off of a bye week, but they likely won’t be using the extra time to prep for a matchup against the Raiders.

The better bet is that they’ll be looking at the week after the Oakland Raiders — a rematch of the AFC Championship game against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium.

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It’s the perfect opportunity for the Raiders to go in there and punch them in the mouth before they even realize what hit them. They could have the firepower to hang with the Chiefs, but if Kansas City starts slow, they might also upset them.

Will the win ultimately matter for the season? That’s yet to be decided.

But it’d feel fantastic to march into Kansas City, put up 35+ points against the flimsy Chiefs defense, and get into Mahomes’ head before he has to visit his daddy the week after.

It’s a game the Raiders will get up for, no matter the point of the season. It’s a marquee game against a marquee rival that can showcase whatever potential the team has hidden in their cast of rookies. Who knows?

Of course, this won’t be any sort of shellacking if the Raiders do, indeed, win against the Chiefs. It’ll still be a shoot-out, but it’ll be one where they have key drives and key stops that neuter the Kansas City offense.

For fans, it might call to mind the last win against the Chiefs — a 31-30 victory in Oakland that snapped a four-game losing streak at the time.

I see this week as either being a silver lining to a lost season or the start of a push for the Raiders to try to eek into the discussion for a Wild Card berth. We’ll need to see a lot more from the Raiders if we can buy into the latter.

If they were to win on the road this year, it would be the first time the Raiders won in Kansas City since 2012.

And it’d be an early Christmas present.

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