There’s bulletin board material and then there’s what the Raiders served up to the Chiefs. It was enough that the Chiefs had the whole week to use the Raiders last visit to Arrowhead as motivation, but then the Raiders only stoked the fire during pregame, dancing on the Chiefs logo.
The announcers were discussing the stunt prior to the game, but there were still some who were skeptical and thinking everyone was making too much of it. A quick look at the video evidence shows it was exactly as blatant as suggested.
Dig this! The #raiders met as a team after their pregame warmup at about the 25 yard line. Then proceeded to relocate their team huddle to midfield on top of the #chiefs logo. The stadium erupted in boos as the Raiders fired each other up. LFG!!! pic.twitter.com/6MQOVtQ5G0
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) December 12, 2021
Each team in pregame warms up on half the field. So, meeting up at the 25 for the huddle is pretty standard. Moving that huddle to midfield and onto the opponent’s logo is not standard. As Raiders linebacker KJ Wright pointed out after the game.
“I’d have been upset too if I was them. Anybody that comes here and does that. They definitely responded to their anger. We couldn’t hold up. They put up a lot of points and got the ball off of us. We just didn’t respond when we did that.”
To say the Chiefs responded is an understatement. They came out firing, jumping to a 35-0 lead and putting the game away before halftime.
The Chiefs offense has been in rare form the past few weeks, and they outdid themselves in this game, holding the Raiders to nine points — all of which came with the game well out of hand — and forced five turnovers.
The 48-9 final score was the worst loss the Raiders have suffered at the hands of the Chiefs in the long history of their storied rivalry.
After the game, the Chiefs blared “The Wheels on the Bus” to troll the Raiders for former head coach Jon Gruden’s decision to drive laps around Arrowhead following the team’s surprise win over the Chiefs last season — the first by the Raiders in KC in six years.
That was how the Chiefs got themselves up during the week. The dancing on the logo was just put some extra pep in their step.
The man who led the team to the logo was defensive end Yannick Ngakoue.
No idea why the Raiders thought this was a good idea pic.twitter.com/vSjDgy0xiU
— Billy M (@BillyM_91) December 12, 2021
You could tell some other Raiders weren’t really on board with the decision, but went along with their defensive captain.
“It was a spur of the moment. One guy said let’s go and we all got to ride together,” Wright added. “We all went out there together as a team and just gave them a little more motivation than we needed to give them.”
Clearly, the Chiefs play better when they are emotional. The Raider, on the other hand, do not.
“You don’t want to be emotional going out there playing,” said Hunter Renfrow. “You can go out there with emotion, but I felt that we played a little emotional today before the game and we just stomped on our own foots.”
There was certainly a lot of stomping going on this day. The Raiders stomped on the Chiefs logo, then got stomped.
