Loss leaves Chiefs chasing Raiders
KANSAS CITY, MO. In the span of a few hours Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs went from controlling the AFC West and taking care of a playoff spot to watching the Oakland Raiders take over.
The Chiefs, who have already beaten the Raiders twice, were leading the visiting Tennessee Titans 17-7 in the second half at frosty, frigid Arrowhead Stadium. But an offence that inexplicably went conservative down the stretch and a defence that finally cracked allowed the Titans to rally for a 19-17 victory.
The Raiders beat the San Diego Chargers and improved to 113, moved atop the division and clinched their first playoff berth since the 2002 season. The Chiefs are 10-4, in second place, with their post-season fate in flux.
“Everything we want is still right there ahead of us,” Chiefs wide receiver Jeremy Maclin said. “We just need to go out, get back to the film room, get back to practice, correct our mistakes and learn from them.”
There were plenty of mistakes to learn from, beginning with two scoreless red-zone trips and an offence that went into a shell at halftime.
“We were awful on third down and we didn’t capitalize in the red zone,” Maclin said. “We could have put the game away much, much earlier, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves.”
The Chiefs own the tiebreaker over the Raiders by virtue of their head-to-head wins, but are a full game behind their division rivals. The Chiefs dropped from the No. 2 seed in the AFC, which would have meant a first-round bye and at least one home game, to the No. 5 seed and a first-round game on the road.
“You can sit here and point fingers, you can do all that stuff that bad teams do, or you can fix the problems. So we’ve got to make sure we do that,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said. “We’re still in good position. We’ve got a good football team coming in here.”
That team coming in will be the Denver Broncos, who are in desperation mode after a loss to New England on Sunday. The Chiefs host them Christmas night.