Raiders: Game breakdown and prediction for Week 13 against Kansas City Chiefs

The 6-5 Oakland Raiders are now in a tough spot after wetting the proverbial bed at MetLife Stadium. They now visit the Kansas City Chiefs and it won’t be easy to get to 7-5.

It was a rough Week 12 for the Oakland Raiders as they took a beating at the hands of the New York Jets and Sam Darnold by a shocking score of 34-3 to drop them back to 6-5.

Now, they head to Arrowhead Stadium to take on Patrick Mahomes and the 7-4 Kansas City Chiefs coming off a bye week.

Typically when picking games, I like to look at well-coached teams coming off byes and throughout his career, Andy Reid has been one of the best in the league after a bye. Reid is 17-3 in that regard and now looks to improve that winning percentage to 85.7% with a win this week.

Granted, two of Reid’s three losses after a bye have come with the Chiefs — one of which being to the New York Giants in 2017 — so for Raiders fans, Reid is not invincible in this kind of spot.

I, however, am still going to go with the Chiefs in this game 42-30 in an offensively fluent type of game where both quarterbacks put up big numbers.

In the Raiders’ case, Derek Carr and company have a lot to make up for after last week’s debacle only putting up three points, so I’d expect them to come out trying to push the ball downfield and trying to hit the Chiefs’ secondary hard.

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In the Chiefs’ case, they just won an ugly game out in Mexico City against the Los Angeles Chargers and have been dragging along for pretty much the entire year (ever since Mahomes went down in Denver).

So, with a week to recuperate, I think they’ll also come out and hit the Raiders hard through the air. I don’t think either defense can stop the opposing offense, so this should be a very good game to see some points be put up on the board.

Where the Raiders can steal it is in their pass rush. 14 sacks in the past five games is nothing to turn your head at. Their pass rush has come alive this past month and Maxx Crosby has emerged as a serious pass-rushing threat in this league with 5.5 of those 14.

Mahomes is still banged up with his foot injury, so his mobility is clearly not at 100 percent. If the Raiders can get to him and make him uncomfortable, they could very well fall into a couple key turnovers and maybe swing momentum their way.

But ultimately, I’m still taking the Chiefs to cover the 10.5 point spread. No, I don’t love this spot because the Raiders are still a very good team and 10.5 points is a lot for a divisional game like this between the top two teams in the division.

But I shall roll the dice and bank on the Chiefs coming out strong out of a bye.