Klint Kubiak is the first-year head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders so maybe it’s inexperience or getting lost in the moment of having a halftime lead over the Kansas City Chiefs, but on Sunday before he took his team into the halftime locker room, he predicted a victory.
On national television.
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“It’s not good enough, we got to do better,” Kubiak told CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson when she asked about the team’s rushing game struggles. “But you know what, we’re winning.
“We’re going to win the game.”
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Yeah, well, no.
Chiefs 30.
Raiders 27.
Sorry, Klint, but Joe Namath you are not.
“That’s how I felt,” Kubiak said after the game. “I just said what I felt.”
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So, it wasn’t a slip of the tongue.
But it was a slip of the personality because Kubiak has been reticent about saying things that would cause any ripples or even be newsworthy since he got this job in February. This guy couldn’t bring himself to name Kirk Cousins the starting quarterback the final week of the preseason even though everyone knew Cousins was the guy.
So whatever the halftime prediction was, it left Kubiak having to ponder this philosophical question going forward: is it wise to to talk (bleep) in the middle of a game against Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs?
It should be said that anyone who looked at the 3-0 Raiders hosting the 3-0 Chiefs as an easy win for the Chiefs was as wrong as Kubiak was at halftime.
The Raiders gave the Chiefs all they could handle and it went down to the final play of the game thanks to some help from officials who ruled a completion on a Las Vegas incomplete pass and didn’t bother to ask replay in the final seconds.
Kirk Cousins followed that with a game-ending interception.
But before then? This was a tight game.
And it was also a game in which Kubiak hurt his team. Beyond the failed prediction.
That’s because after leading 13-10 at halftime, the Raiders seemingly extended the lead to 16-10 in the third quarter when kicker Matt Gay connected on a 41-yard field goal.
But Kubiak’s elected to take the points off the board because the Chiefs were flagged for illegal formation. So Kubiak decided to go for it on fourth-and-2.
And that was followed by an incomplete pass on fourth down that resulted in zero points for the Raiders – in a game they lost by 3.
“I took three points off the board and we were going to be aggressive going into the game,” Kubiak said. “I don’t regret it. I regret not getting it.”
All of this swagger and bravado is going to endear Kubiak to Raiders fans as long as he, you know, makes good on a prediction every once in while.
But it is also going to make him look bad if he keeps writing verbal checks his team cannot fund. Kubiak must learn that the Chiefs, leading the AFC West now, are an account-draining team.
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Even though the Raiders had not allowed any fourth-quarter points in any of their first three games of the season, the Chiefs scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
Running back Kenneth Walker had two of those scores en route to a 177-yard rushing day. That’s a career high and it spoke volumes.
That is the way for the Chiefs. They said nothing about the outcome of this game until it was over.
Then they allowed the scoreboard to tell the tale.
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