Of Chief Importance: Will Raiders switch up defensive looks in Kansas City?

By Case Keefer (contact)

Friday, Dec. 10, 2021 | 2 a.m.

The Raiders’ defense failed to adjust to the Chiefs’ offense and paid the price.

That was the widespread consensus out of Las Vegas’ 41-14 loss to Kansas City earlier this season at Allegiant Stadium. In a season where most teams have copied each other’s concepts to limit the Chiefs, critics say the Raiders stubbornly stuck to their Cover 3 scheme.

Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley isn’t sure he buys into the talk.

“I think if you go back and watch, you would see there’s some mixture of things that we do,” he said after practice Thursday at the Raiders’ Henderson headquarters. “We’re trying to get to that point where we can mix things up without losing execution of what we really are. That’s the challenge of it.”

The real challenge comes Sunday when Las Vegas (6-6) finishes off this year’s series with Kansas City (8-4) on the road with a 10 a.m. kickoff at Geha Field at Arrowhead Stadium. The Raiders’ shrinking playoff chances will fall much farther if they allow the Chiefs’ offense to run as wild as they did last month.

Kansas City racked up a season-high 516 yards in Las Vegas with its second-best efficiency rate at 6.8 yards per play. Many outsiders chalked it up to a systematic failing of Bradley’s defense, but that’s not the sense within the Raiders.

Bradley said a big problem was that the Raiders just didn’t play fast enough against perhaps the speediest team in the league, at least not on an every-down basis.

“It wasn’t up to our standards,” linebacker K.J. Wright said. “They put up 40-some points — it was really bad. We know what we’re capable of and that shouldn’t happen again.”

It shouldn’t happen again because now there’s a two-thirds season sample to show the Chiefs’ offense isn’t playing at the level it did in the first three years with Patrick Mahomes as their starting quarterback. Kansas City is still at an above-average 5.8 yards per play on the season, but that’s 0.6 fewer yards than it averaged from 2018-2020 and 0.5 fewer yards than last year’s mark.

Opponents have almost uniformly combatted Mahomes this season by dropping two safeties into deep coverage and only rushing with their front four defensive linemen. The latter strategy is a centerpiece of Bradley’s philosophy, but the former is not, and he didn’t shift away from it for one week against the Chiefs — at least not on the majority of downs.

That allowed Mahomes to get into his preferred rhythm of scrambling around and waiting for routes to develop downfield on what may have traditionally been referred to as broken plays.

“He’s one of those guys that really never gives up on a play,” defensive end Maxx Crosby said of Mahomes. “He can throw it from every angle. He’s quick. He’s got good speed. He’s just got great instincts as a quarterback, that’s what separates him. He can make things happen out of nowhere. He’s one of those guys you’ve just got to continually pursue, try to keep in the pocket the best you can, try to take the ball away. He’s a special player and I always look forward to playing against him.”

Crosby got one of the Raiders’ three sacks on Mahomes in a win at Arrowhead last year, but they didn’t manage to get him down once earlier this season. As many opposing quarterbacks have done, Mahomes repeatedly targeted Raiders strong safety Johnathan Abram.

Abram gave up a game-winning touchdown to Kansas City on a blown assignment in Las Vegas last year, and his first meeting this year didn’t go much better. But Bradley defended Abram on Thursday and also may have hinted he’ll again be playing more in a “box” role near the line of scrimmage instead of in a deep zone like other opponents have done against the Chiefs.

“In our style of defense, the strong safety is going to get attacked whatever team you play,” Bradley said. “You have to be on it. There’s a lot that’s on his plate. There’s a lot he has to do for this defense. It’s a great position to play because you have so much activity, you’re around the ball a lot. I think for him it’s just consistency. Last week, he played pretty well for us and it’s just stacking them up now. He’s looking forward to it. It’s going to be another great challenge for him.”

Mahomes found most of his success going to his longtime two favorite targets, No. 1 receiver Tyreek Hill and tight end Travis Kelce. Hill had seven catches for 83 yards and two touchdowns, while Kelce had eight receptions for 119 yards.

Kelce had entered the game on somewhat of a slump for his standards, having failed to reach 100 receiving yards in six straight games. Opponents had slowed him down by trying to rough him up with chips and hits off the line of scrimmage.

The Raiders didn’t appear to knock Kelce off course as much, but Bradley indicated that might just be another misperception. They had specific tactics to be more physical with Kelce, according to Bradley, but the superstar found ways around it and the Raiders weren’t always on top of where he was at on the field.

Contrary to the postgame chatter, Bradley believes the Raiders had a strong enough game plan with enough different looks to have success against the Chiefs. And they will once again on Sunday.

“I think there are some things we have to improve on, just have more awareness and execution,” Bradley said.

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or