The Las Vegas Raiders pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the season thus far after defeating the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-32, in their Week 5 matchup. Understandably, Raiders head coach Jon Gruden had nothing but good things to say about his team's performance, particularly with the commendable defensive job they did on Chiefs superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Gruden believes that his team did a tremendous job on Mahomes, despite the fact that they were shorthanded:
“If you look at the number of scrambles Mahomes had today, the effort that we had to try to get him (was there),” said Coach Gruden. “This is as hard as it gets; we didn’t have many substitutions available. Chris Smith, Datone Jones came up off the practice squad. It was their debut today, and thank God we had them.”
It was looking like another outstanding effort from Mahomes early on, as he led his team to a 24-point first half. However, the Raiders made the necessary adjustments during the break, which allowed them to clamp down on Mahomes and the Kansas City offense during the second half.
Chris Smith, who as Gruden described above was just recently activated from the practice squad, played a significant role in Las Vegas' strong second half performance. Smith was responsible for one of three sacks on Mahomes after the break, which clearly threw the reigning Super Bowl MVP off his rhythm.
A ton of credit needs to be sent towards the Raiders' direction, after they handed a powerhouse Kansas City side with just their first loss of the season. This was Las Vegas' first win in the past three contests, which now takes them to 3-2.
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