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Chiefs had no penalties for first time since 1974 vs. Raiders

The Chiefs said they needed to improve penalties out of the bye week, and they did... drastically.

Oakland Raiders v Kansas City Chiefs Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Exactly one week ago Monday, Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid discussed what he wanted his team to improve upon after the bye. There were some details of fixing the offense that he would not go into, but he did mention penalties.

The Chiefs had taken 78 penalties (16th at the time) for 738 yards against (25th at the time) this season, according to nflpenalites.com.

“We need to take care of those,” said Reid. “They’ve affected us in the field. It’s affected us in the red zone. We need to make sure we clean that up and that’s something we can do. That’s obvious, I think. The other things are smaller and I’m not going to get into those, but if we take care of that we will be better off all the way around. If you get a penalty in this league on a drive then it cuts your percentages of opportunities to score way down. You need to get rid of those.”

And they did — completely and historically — against the Oakland Raiders. The Chiefs took no penalties in the game for the first time since 1974 (the touchdown called back due to offsetting penalties does not count, technically), according to Herbie Teope of The Kansas City Star and the Chiefs public relations staff.

“I compliment the players on that,” said Reid. “Inevitably they’re the ones out there playing and they did a nice job with it. It was a mindset that they had and it all worked out.”

The Raiders, on the other hand, took 12 penalties for 99 yards.

“The turnovers, penalties were a big part of this game,” said Raiders head coach Jon Gruden “I am not disappointed with the effort of our team, but we got to learn from this and I have to take it upon myself. The penalties and the turnovers are two things that will do you in in big games in December when everything is on the line.”


“The Wizard of Oz”

NFL: Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

Gruden was not happy that the official’s replay booth called back a Patrick Mahomes interception in the end zone.

With the Chiefs already leading 24-0 midway through the third quarter, Mahomes threw a pass that was intercepted by cornerback Trayvon Mullen in the end zone. But the replay clearly showed that Mullen interfered with Demarcus Robinson, the intended receiver on the play.

The booth overturned the call and LeSean McCoy ran in a 3-yard touchdown on the next play.

“We had an interception that we felt we did intercept that was turned over by the Wizard of Oz or somebody.” said Gruden. “I do not know what happened on that. That was a big play in the game no doubt.”

Earlier in the game, in the first quarter, Reid lost a pass-interference challenge.

“I mean things happen,” said Reid after the game. “Obviously, I challenged it because I thought we would have a chance, but it didn’t work out and we ended up getting the other one so I’m happy about that.”

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