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Week 12 of the NFL season is wrapped up, and we are headed toward Thanksgiving week in the NFL. We are looking past the Turkey Day games and looking ahead to the second-annual Black Friday Football game. This game may not be pretty, but we have an AFC West clash between the Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs.
Let’s break down each team’s Week 12 recap while breaking down this matchup and making a Raiders @ Chargers NFL pick.
It has been a tough year for the Las Vegas Raiders. Unfortunately, it didn’t improve in their Week 12 matchup against the Denver Broncos. The Broncos took care of business, winning the game 29-19.
To top things off, they lost their starting quarterback, Gardner Minshew, for the season after breaking his collarbone. Before going down with injury, Minshew and the Raiders offense kept this one close. Minshew finished 24-42 with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Once Minshew went down, we saw former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Desmond Ridder enter the game. He finished 5-10 for 64 yards. Ridder will be the starting QB this week against the Chiefs.
With both Zamir White and Alexander missing this one due to injury, Ameer Abdullah took the lead-back role. Abdullah was not effective on the ground, carrying the ball eight times for just 28 yards. However, he was involved in the passing games, catching five of his six targets for 37 yards and a touchdown.
Even in the loss, the Raider pass-catchers still had good days. Jakobi Meyers caught 10 of his 15 targets for 121 yards, while Tre Tucker caught seven balls for 82 yards. Brock Bowers is having a great rookie season, but the Georgia product struggled a bit in this one. The Broncos were not going to allow Bowers to beat them. Bowers caught 4 balls for just 38 yards. Now, they look ahead to try and pull off a massive upset.
The reigning Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs had a scare in Week 12. They went on the road to take on the three-win team Panthers team and won 30-27 with a game-winning field goal as time expired.
The Chiefs offense was fine in this one, starting with Patrick Mahomes, but their defense let them down and kept the contest close. Mahomes has had a quiet season thus far but was very good against the Panthers. He finished 27-37 for 269 yards and three touchdowns. One thing that did catch my eye was that he was sacked five times against a struggling Panthers defense.
Mahomes spread the ball around in this matchup. Backup tight end Noah Gray led the Chiefs in receiving with 4 catches, 66 yards and 2 touchdowns. DeAndre Hopkins caught the other touchdown and finished with five catches for 35 yards. Travis Kelce and Xavier Worthy also combined for 10 catches and 108 yards.
Kareem Hunt was in a smash spot from the running back position, but he disappointed a bit. He only recorded 68 yards on 16 carries on the ground. This also could be the last time Hunt is the lead back in this offense. Running back Isiah Pacheco could be returning from injury this week.
We have seen the Raiders-Chiefs before this season as they met in late October. It was a close matchup, but the Cheifs were able to win that one 27-20. With the Raiders now down to their third quarterback option in Desmond Ridder, that does not bode well for Las Vegas.
However, one important note for this game is that the Kansas City Chiefs are the worst defense against opposing tight ends in the NFL this season. The Chiefs have allowed the most yards to the position, the most receptions and rank 5th in targets allowed. Las Vegas TE Brock Bowers finished with 5 catches for 58 yards in the first matchup between these two teams.
The first matchup was a bit of a quiet one for Bowers. But we expect him to take full advantage of a good matchup against the Chiefs. Therefore, I’ll back Brock Bowers to record 5+ receptions in this Black Friday showdown.
Dylan has had a love for sports since he was a kid. Four years ago, he decided to dive into the sports content-creating industry specializing in Fantasy Football, NFL and NBA. He has since had his work published on sites that include Fantasy Alarm, Fansided, and Fantasy Six Pack.