Getty Jon Gruden with Andy Reid.
It wasn’t that long ago when the Las Vegas Raiders shocked the world and handed the Kansas City Chiefs their first and only loss of the season. It was a monumental achievement for a Raiders team that has been really bad against their rival in recent years. The two sides will face each other once again and things are bound to get a little chippy.
Whether they’ll admit it or not, the Chiefs clearly underestimated the Raiders in their first matchup of the season. That’s not going to happen again. After Las Vegas pulled off the win, there were reports that the team did a victory lap around Arrowhead Stadium. In his Monday press conference, head coach Andy Reid was clearly irked by that fact.
“They won the game so they can do anything they want to do,” Reid said on Monday, via ESPN. “That’s not our style.”
With the season past its halfway point, the Raiders and Chiefs are clearly the two best teams in the AFC West. This week’s game is arguably the biggest of the season for both teams. The Chiefs are going to be looking for revenge while the Raiders are going to try and prove that their win in Arrowhead wasn’t a fluke.
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Raiders & Chiefs Don’t Like Each Other
The rivalry between the Raiders and Chiefs is one of the oldest and most contentious rivalries in the NFL. Now that both teams are playing at a high level, the rivalry is only going to get more fierce. Reid didn’t hide the fact that he’s not a fan of the silver and black.
“It’s two good football teams playing each other,” Reid said. “I don’t think either team likes the other that much, as they’ve stated before.”
There’s clearly no love lost between the two sides. The Chiefs have dominated the AFC West for years and the Raiders are the only team even close to changing that fact. Should Las Vegas sweep Kansas City, it signals that the Chiefs aren’t going to dominate the division with ease going forward.
Will Raiders Pull off Another Upset?
This week’s game between the two teams will be very intriguing. The Chiefs are coming off a bye week and there’s no way they’re underestimating their rival again. On the other hand, the Raiders are playing at home in primetime and are on a two-game winning streak.
Kansas City has a lot of reasons to want to come into Las Vegas and blowout the Raiders but that’s not going to be easy to do. The silver and black have one of the best offenses in the NFL and put up 40 points on the Chiefs this season already. Kansas City will be the favorite heading into the game but anybody would be foolish to count out the Raiders. They’ve already proven that they can beat the NFL’s best but they are still hungry to keep proving everybody wrong.
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