The Union Democrat

Will Raiders bounce back after loss to Chiefs?

- By ANTHONY GALAVIZ The Fresno Bee

There were plenty of reasons why the Las Vegas Raiders lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 41-14 Sunday night.

There were missed tackles, penalties (9-68 yards), schemes and very bad execution that resulted in the lopsided AFC West loss that sent the Raiders to 5-4.

Even NBC Sports color commentato­r Cris Collinswor­th was surprised.

“I expected much more out of the Raiders tonight,” he told the viewers. “I have to say that. Maybe it’s just too much of all the things that happened this season. It’s too much to expect.”

No excuses. The Raiders should have played better. It wasn’t just because of Desean Jackson’s fumble in the third quarter.

It started earlier after the Raiders trailed 17-7 at halftime. Las Vegas was outgained 241-82 and penalized four times for 28 yards. And Kansas City had 15 first downs to the Raiders’ five.

The Chiefs came into the game struggling of sorts, but it was the Raiders that struggled mightily and found themselves searching for answers.

“There are a lot of things to improve on,” Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby said. “We just got to be better in every phase. We didn’t play well tonight. We know that and just got to bounce back and get ready for Cincy.”

Can the Raiders recover? Maybe the good news is Las Vegas has another home game Sunday, but against a much-improved Cincinnati Bengals team that’s 5-4 and coming off a bye.

The rested Bengals are coming off an embarrassi­ng loss, too. Cincinnati lost 41-16 to the Cleveland Browns for their second straight

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