No one likes the idea of a moral victory. And everyone claims not to believe in them. I get that. Moral victories are still losses. But to say all losses are created equally just because they look the same on the record column is simply being disingenuous. This game is a perfect example of that.
No one would have thought the Raiders were not worthy of their 6-3 record coming into their Sunday Night game against the Chiefs had they lost by double digits. Because anyone who’s been following along knows what the Raiders were up against.
They were facing the defending Super Bowl champion coming out of their bye week. And while the Chiefs had two weeks to prepare, the Raiders were without 11 of their players throughout the week due to COVID-19 quarantines. Four of those players would not play in the game, all starters, three of whom were defenders.
The fourth player is Trent Brown whose only game this season was the Raiders’ win over the Chiefs.
Those aren’t excuses, they’re just the reality the Raiders were faced with. And any team would feel they had an uphill battle to overcome it.
And yet, the Raiders came out and looked like a well-oiled machine. They scored on each of their first three drives, never trailed in the first half, and went into the half up 17-14. Then after the Chiefs opened the second half with their first go-ahead score, the Raiders twice re-took the lead, including with under two minutes left in the game.
This led to, believe it or not, the first-ever game that Patrick Mahomes threw a go-ahead TD inside two minutes left in a game. That shows you that teams just don’t put him in that situation.
It was veteran tight end Jason Witten who caught the go-ahead touchdown with 1:53 remaining. Obviously, he’s played a lot of football and sees what this game means in the big picture.
“I don’t believe in moral victories, I really don’t,” Witten emphasized. “I think this team, where it’s at, it’s the third year of the program, we really feel like we can play with anybody. This is the type of team we expect to have. At the same time, it’s a young team. And you just remind them, you say listen 60 minutes with the World Champs. They’re a good football team, the only loss they had coming into the night was us and we got a lot of respect for them. Great players, great coaching staff, and we took them all the way down to the wire. These are the type of games you want to play and come November and early December. We got a lot of football ahead of us.”
While the Raiders’ defense is much maligned, they did something no other teams have done this season — that’s picking off Mahomes. Trayvon Mullen intercepted Mahomes at the end of the second quarter to keep them from scoring before the half. It was just the second interception Mahomes has thrown this season; both of which were against the Raiders.
Something else no other team has done to the Chiefs this season is score over 30 points on them. The Raiders have done it twice now. Quarterback Derek Carr is rolling and spreading the ball around.
“This is the best offense I’ve ever been a part of,” said Derek Carr afterward. “This group is awesome. And I know I say it every week, but we can win in different ways. We can smash ’em with the run game or we can do a shootout. We’re proving that over time. The exciting part is everyone’s young. We got a lot of young guys. I’m the old guy, I guess. It’s exciting because you see where we’re headed. It’s showing you little glimpses here. We’re starting to get a little healthier. We’re on our way. And it’s exciting. I’m excited, but today it wasn’t enough.”
Losing sucks, but the Raiders showed a National television audience Sunday night that they are for real. For the second time this season, they went toe-to-toe with the defending Super Bowl champion whose only loss was to them earlier this season.
