Loser: The Raiders’ Nonexistent Offense
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs delivered a vintage offensive performance in Rashee Rice’s season debut (he was previously serving a six-game suspension for his role in a serious multicar crash in 2024), cruising to a 31-0 win against the Raiders. The Chiefs offense was humming right away, with long, methodical drives that seemed to crush the Raiders’ spirit well before halftime. Rice caught his first touchdown of the season at the end of the Chiefs’ nine-play, 92-yard drive. He caught a second touchdown just before halftime, the capper to a 16-play, 94-yard drive. In between those possessions, the Chiefs had a 17-play, 84-yard scoring drive.
By the time the game was over, the Chiefs had 30 first downs, the second most by any team in a game this season. That figure is impressive enough on its own, but then compare the Chiefs to the Raiders, who had just three first downs—the fewest in any game this season by a considerable margin (the dreadful Titans even managed seven in their Week 1 loss to Denver). But that was far from the only ignominious stat for the Raiders:
By EPA added per play, it was the worst performance by an offense in a game this season. Yes, worse than that Jake Browning Bengals game against the Vikings.
The Raiders’ offensive success rate on the day was just 14.3 percent—nearly 7 percentage points worse than the second-place team (the Dolphins, on Sunday against Cleveland).
Las Vegas ran just 30 offensive plays—the fewest in a game since at least 2000, and three fewer than the Carson Wentz–led Chiefs in Week 18 last season.
The Raiders had the ball for just 17 minutes and 52 seconds, the lowest time of possession for an offense this season (no other team is below 21 minutes). Quite an easy day’s work for the Chiefs defense.
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