LAS VEGAS — Close doesn’t count. The Las Vegas Raiders almost pulled off another upset of the Kansas City Chiefs, but that doesn’t make their narrow 27-20 loss on Sunday go down any easier.
For the Raiders, falling short against the Chiefs should be looked at as a missed opportunity rather than a sign of growth. Las Vegas’ list of problems was long, but the most impactful were costly penalties, a backbreaking turnover, poor timeout usage and terrible decision-making.
“It’s been the story of our season,” defensive end Maxx Crosby said. “We (can’t) keep doing the same thing. We’ve got to find ways to win.”
The reasons the Raiders came up short are the same issues that have plagued them all season. The players and other coaches surely aren’t absolved of blame, but the fact that they persist falls squarely on the shoulders of head coach Antonio Pierce.
“We were competitive today,” Pierce said after the game. “I mean, I’m sure there’s questions about what I did, but I think one thing our team did was we were competitive. We fought until the very end and gave ourselves a chance.”
Owner Mark Davis was so sure about hiring Pierce this past offseason that he didn’t really conduct a full-fledged coaching search. Pierce was one of just three candidates the Raiders interviewed, which is the minimum required to satisfy the Rooney Rule. They were planning on rolling with Pierce.
Davis knew, however, that Pierce was light on inexperience — he had just a decade of coaching experience under his belt — and would certainly endure growing pains. That has come to fruition.
“He’s young as a head coach,” Davis said of Pierce earlier this month. “He’s learning how to be a head coach. He’s surrounded himself with a lot of good people. He’s just got to grow into the job. It’s his first year, really. What he did last year was phenomenal. … We’ll be OK. We’ve got to clean some things up.”
Throughout the current four-game losing streak that has the Raiders sitting at 2-6, Pierce hasn’t been able to clean things up. While there’s no real concern about him losing his job, he needs to show growth for things to stay that way.
The Raiders came out hot against the Chiefs. They gave up a touchdown on the opening drive of the game but responded with a 10-0 run to take the lead. Despite being outmatched against the undefeated, back-to-back Super Bowl champs, it was clear they weren’t just going to roll over.
Welcome back Mr. Meyers#KCvsLV | 📺 @paramountplus pic.twitter.com/Q1NdgML78o
— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) October 27, 2024
Toward the end of the first half, though, Pierce made the first in a series of miscues that ultimately doomed his team. The Chiefs trailed 10-7 and faced a third-and-goal from the Raiders’ 5-yard line at the two-minute warning. Coming out of the stoppage, Pierce didn’t like what he saw and burned his second timeout. Still, the Chiefs scored on a Patrick Mahomes touchdown pass to tight end Travis Kelce to take a 14-10 lead.
Las Vegas got the ball back with one timeout and 1:57 remaining to attempt to respond. On first down, a jet sweep to receiver Jakobi Meyers went for no gain. Perplexingly, the Raiders weren’t moving with any sense of urgency after the play and didn’t take their next snap until there was just 1:16 left. Even more confusingly, on second down, they handed the ball off to running back Ameer Abdullah for a 2-yard gain. They were trailing the best team in the NFL and had plenty of time to work with — but they showed little interest in trying to score.
The Chiefs responded by using one of their timeouts to stop the clock, forced an incompletion from quarterback Gardner Minshew II on third down and engineered a speedy field goal drive to extend their lead to 17-10 at halftime. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy is the play caller who dialed up the strange sequence, but allowing that to happen is on Pierce.
“We wanted to score but, more importantly, we wanted to keep the clock running,” Pierce said. “Going against a really good team in a two-minute situation, you want to get a first down, allow them to use their timeouts and give Patrick Mahomes the least amount of time possible.”
The Raiders should’ve been thinking about scoring, not running clock.
Trailing 17-13 late in the third quarter, Pierce and the Raiders had a prime opportunity to make up for the blunder. Defensive tackle John Jenkins tipped a Mahomes pass from his own end zone, and safety Tre’von Moehrig intercepted it and returned the ball to the Kansas City 3-yard line. The chance to swing the game in their favor was there for the taking.
But the Raiders handed the ball off to running back Alexander Mattison — who was averaging 1.9 yards per carry going into the drive — three times in a row for a net total of zero yards. Pierce decided to stay aggressive and go for it on fourth down, but Minshew was sacked for a turnover on downs. Again, while Getsy calls the plays on offense, Pierce shares the onus.
“As a team overall, we’ve got to get better,” Pierce said of potentially stripping Getsy of his play-calling duties. “I’m not going to get into play calling or anything of that nature.”
Yet the Raiders still could’ve beaten the Chiefs. They were down just 20-13 when they got the ball with 8:44 left in the fourth quarter. But on the second play of the drive, Minshew was strip-sacked, and the Chiefs recovered and took over at the Raiders 38-yard line.
Ball is out! @Chiefs ball!
📺: #KCvsLV on CBS/Paramount+
📱: https://t.co/waVpO8ZBqG pic.twitter.com/KWHdoBVzQX— NFL (@NFL) October 27, 2024
It was certainly a tough situation, but the game wasn’t over. The problem? Pierce coached like it was.
The Chiefs went with a run-first approach to start their drive, calling three consecutive handoffs and picking up a first down. They tried to run again after an 8-yard completion but were stopped for no gain. With the Chiefs facing third-and-2 from the Raiders’ 19-yard line and 5:12 left on the clock, Pierce called his first timeout.
“Just looking at the score and looking at all of the numbers, if they kick a field goal, it’s a two-score game,” Pierce said. “We tried to save as much time as possible.”
Nonetheless, the Chiefs picked up a first down on a completion to Kelce at the Raiders’ 8. Pierce immediately called his second timeout. It was an odd move considering the Chiefs had just picked up a fresh set of downs and there were still five-plus minutes left to play. It was even stranger when Pierce used the Raiders’ final timeout after Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt was tackled for a 1-yard loss.
The Chiefs scored a touchdown on the next play to go up 27-13. On the ensuing possession, the Raiders put together an 80-yard touchdown drive to make it 27-20 with 2:03 left, but they had no means of stopping the clock aside from the two-minute warning. That meant they had to attempt an onside kick, which failed. If they had preserved, say, two timeouts, they could’ve kicked off normally and attempted to get a stop. Instead, they watched helplessly as Mahomes kneeled out the clock.
Pierce’s game management wasn’t the only reason the Raiders lost, of course, but it was one of the biggest. It’s an area in which Pierce has struggled since last season, and it has stood out in losses to the Chargers, Steelers and Rams this year.
While Pierce is technically a first-year head coach, he now has 17 games under his belt if you count his nine-game stint as interim coach last season. It’s reasonable to expect progress, especially since he isn’t calling plays. As a CEO head coach, decision-making is arguably his biggest responsibility. He has to show he can be better in that role.
The Raiders’ chances of making the playoffs are so minute that they’re hardly worth discussing, but that doesn’t mean Pierce’s issues are acceptable. Until he improves, it’ll continue to hold his team back.
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(Photo: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
