There are no moral victories in the NFL. The Kansas City Chiefs left Allegiant Stadium with a 30-27 win, a 4-0 record and the top spot in the AFC West. The Las Vegas Raiders left with their first defeat under Klint Kubiak and a scoreboard that does not care how hard they fought.
Still, that does not mean Sunday was empty. It means the lesson sits somewhere else. The Raiders outgained a team that has owned this building, took a lead into the fourth quarter and answered an 11-point deficit with a touchdown and a two-point conversion. They lost by a field goal to Patrick Mahomes. For a roster that was supposed to be rebuilding in public, that is not nothing. It is also not a win.
Klint Kubiak has stones…
The call people will argue about came early in the third quarter. Matt Gay had already made a 41-yard field goal that would have pushed Las Vegas from 13-10 to 16-10, but Kansas City was flagged for illegal formation. Kubiak had a choice: take the three points, or take the penalty, wipe the kick off the board and go for it on fourth-and-2 from the Chiefs’ 18.
He went for it.
Kirk Cousins’ pass to Ashton Jeanty fell incomplete, and the points were gone. The Raiders lost by three, and had everything else played out the same way, those three points would have tied the game at the end. Kubiak knew that when he faced the cameras, he did not hide from them. He said he did not regret the decision, only the result. He also owned a separate fourth-down sequence later, when a play call did not get in fast enough and George Karlaftis hit Cousins’ arm on a throw that was intercepted. “I blew it,” he said.
That is not coach-speak…
It’s the voice of a man who called his shot at halftime on national television (“We’re winning. We’re going to win the game.”) and then stood in the wreckage of the one that got away.
The point is not that every aggressive call is the right one. The point is what the locker room hears when the head coach keeps putting the ball in his players’ hands. Kubiak has spent four weeks telling this roster he trusts them. He trusted the offense to finish a short field against the Saints. He trusted Cousins to throw when the run game vanished against the Chargers. On Sunday, he trusted them enough to give back a made field goal against the best team in the division. It did not work, but the belief still landed. Cousins said as much after the game, in plain language: When your head coach believes in you, that goes a long way.
Players remember who blinked and who did not. A first-year coach who would rather miss going for it than live scared is building something that outlasts one Sunday. The three points hurt. The message does not.
Related: Raiders proved they “belong” by nearly defeating the Chiefs
The tight end room is the No. 1 threat…
The wide receivers were almost invisible again. Tre Tucker had four catches for 44 yards, and Cody White had two catches and the two-point conversion that made it 30-27. That is not a receiving corps that scares a Steve Spagnuolo defense. The run game, which looked like a foundation in Week 1, has been stuck since. Las Vegas finished with 72 rushing yards on 26 carries, an average of 2.8 yards per attempt. Jeanty is still the back they drafted, but the lanes have not been there.
The tight ends keep showing up anyway…
Brock Bowers caught six passes for 86 yards and the 20-yard touchdown that gave the building a pulse with 1:44 left. Michael Mayer caught eight of 10 targets for 82 yards and was a chain-mover from the opening series. Ian Thomas added two catches for 32 yards and a touchdown. Add it up, and the tight end room produced 16 receptions, 200 yards and both of Cousins’ scoring throws. Cousins himself was 31 of 52 for 365 yards and was not sacked once.
That is the offense right now: not a finished product, but a clear hierarchy. When the protection holds, Kubiak can live through Bowers and Mayer and use Thomas as the changeup. Defenses know it, yet they still cannot take all three out of the game at once. Bowers is the problem who wins at the catch point. Mayer is the problem who sits in the soft spot and moves the sticks. Thomas is the problem who slips out when the other two have drawn the help.
Until the receivers become more than complementary and the run game finds the holes it had against Miami, this is how Las Vegas scores. It is not a secret, and it is not a weakness if the quarterback keeps delivering the ball on time. Sunday was another week of proof.
The Raiders are for real…
Four weeks ago, this was a team people circled as a get-right game. Three wins later, and even in a loss, the conversation has shifted. Kansas City did not stroll into Allegiant Stadium and collect a paycheck. Mahomes threw for just 225 yards, and Kenneth Walker needed 177 rushing yards and two touchdowns, including a 76-yarder and a 22-yard score right after a kickoff fumble, to finish the job. The Chiefs did not force the issue for three quarters. They merely survived the fourth.
That is what a threat looks like: not a team that wins every close game, but a team the other sideline has to respect for 60 minutes. Kubiak’s rebuild was supposed to be a multiyear project. Four games in, the Raiders are 3-1. They have beaten a division rival on the road, come back from 11 points down in New Orleans and pushed the Chiefs to the final minute at home. The national shows no longer treat them like a prop bet, and the players are starting to believe it, too. You could see it in the two-minute drill. You could hear it in the way Cousins talked about his coach.
What that means for December, nobody knows…
The run game is still a problem, the receiver room is still thin, and the defense just gave up 177 yards to one back without taking the ball away. Imagine, though, what happens when all three phases show up on the same afternoon. The tight ends are already there. The quarterback is playing like the job is his, and the coach is calling games like he expects to win them. If the line starts moving people and the defense starts finishing the way it did in the fourth quarter against the Saints, this stops being a pleasant surprise and starts being a problem for the rest of the conference.
The Chiefs left Las Vegas feeling the Raiders, and that means something. It means this team belongs, it is playing meaningful football, and it is playing for each other and for Raider Nation, not just to get through the week.
One more thing has to be said, because it showed up on the field.
Shame on the season-ticket holders who keep treating these seats like a portfolio…
This was a pivotal division game against the team that has owned the building. If you are willing to sell that ticket to a rival so its fans can paint Allegiant red, you are not a fan that day. You are a wannabe shareholder. There was too much red in the stands, and it was loud at the wrong times. It changed the feel of a home game that should have been hostile. Andy Reid now has more wins at Allegiant than any coach who has worked there. Part of that is Mahomes. Part of it is a home crowd that keeps getting outbid by the visitors. Fix it. Wear the Silver and Black. Show up. The team is starting to hold up its end.
Speaking of holding up its end, the Raiders head to New England next Sunday. The Patriots just knocked off Buffalo and will be waiting at Gillette Stadium, 2-2 and angry in their own way. Las Vegas will be angry, too. A one-score loss to the Chiefs does not earn a week off from execution. It earns a rebound. The tight ends will travel, and the coach will keep calling it like he trusts the people in the huddle. The rest of the roster has to meet him there.
The Chiefs felt them. Now the Raiders get to show the Patriots what that feeling turns into.
*Top Photo: Ramble Illustration/Getty Images