KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sporting Alert – Kansas City Chiefs beat Oakland Raiders 21-13 in an AFC West battle at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday night.
Tyreek Hill had two touchdowns and Kansas City’s defense stifled Derek Carr and Oakland en route to moving atop of the division after sweeping the regular season matchup.
The Raiders jumped ahead in the first quarter with a Sebastian Janikowski 44 yard field goal with 11:34 left in the opening period.
However, the Chiefs answered back with 21 straight points in the second quarter, which included rookie wide receiver Tyreek Hill catching a 36-yard scoring pass from Alex Smith and then a 78-yard punt return for a game-turning score.
“It gave me chills on the sideline,” said Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith. “The whole stadium is chanting his name and he answers — that was one of the coolest things I’ve seen, for sure.”
Oakland’s Latavius Murray scored on a one-yard run to lightened the deficit to 21-10 at halftime.
The Raiders also started the second half brightly, forcing, back-to-back swift turnovers on Smith, but the visitors were unable to take full advantage.
During that period, though, Oakland only managed to score a 33-yard field goal in the third quarter, as it struggled to shake off the defensive line of the Chiefs.
Smith completed 17 of 26 passes for 261 yards with a touchdown and an interception for Kansas City (10-3) and tight end Travis Kelce took five catches for 101 yards, his fourth consecutive 100-yard receiving game on Thursday.
Hill caught six of his targets for 66 yards, Chris Conley caught two passes for 70 yards and Spencer Ware ran for 56 yards for the Chiefs, who have won three straight.
“This was as big as it gets for a regular-season game,” Smith said. “We don’t get caught up in all the must-win stuff, that’s not how we operate, but we knew the stakes for sure.”
There was a major setback in the win, though, for the Chiefs, as they lost linebacker Derrick Johnson for the rest of the season after he re-injured his left Achilles before halftime.
“I felt a little bit of a letdown when it happened,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid admitted.
He added: “But the last thing D.J. would have wanted was a letdown.”
MVP LEADER STRUGGLE AGAIN
MVP leading candidate Derek Carr had another night to forget against his divisional rivals after Kansas City’s defense made life miserable for the Oakland quarterback once again.
Carr went just 17 of 41 on completed passes for 117 yards without a touchdown and finished with a 7.6 QBR for the Raider.
Wide receiver Seth Roberts didn’t help out his quarterback either, after dropping most of his nine targets, while Amari Cooper also failed to adjust to take what would have been a vital touchdown catch early in the fourth quarter.
“It was definitely a bad night. There’s no getting around that,” Carr said.
“I hate to have the bad night come on this one, right? Out of all the games that we’ve had. Obviously, we didn’t do enough.”
Up next for Oakland is an AFC West battle at San Diego on Dec. 18, with Kansas City staying at home on the same day against Tennessee.
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