Las Vegas Raiders vs Kansas City Chiefs Pick
By
Oct 11, 2020
Odds.com’s Las Vegas Raiders vs Kansas City Chiefs Pick – NFL Week 5: The Kansas City Chiefs are 4-0 straight-up (SU) for the third consecutive season and look to take full control of the AFC West Division standings with a win over the Las Vegas Raiders.
| NFL Betting | Las Vegas Raiders | Kansas City Chiefs |
|---|---|---|
| Best ATS Line | +11.5 (-109) | -11 (-109) |
| Total | Over 55.5 (-110) | Under 56.5 (-121) |
| Where/When | Arrowhead Stadium | Oct 11th, 1:00 PM EST |
The Chiefs are known for their offensive prowess led by reigning MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes. However, this season, the dominant force is the emergence of the Chiefs defense that ranks among the Top-5 in many of the meaningful performance measures.
The Chiefs Dominating Defense
The Chiefs rank 12th in the NFL, allowing opponents to gain an average of 5.4 yards-per-play but rank third-best allowing just 70 points through the first four games for an average of 17.5 points-per-game. They rank 3rd, allowing opponents to score on only 30% of their drives.
The improvement has been a change to a far more aggressive attack from the defense. This season the Chiefs defense is bringing many different-looking blitzes on 40% of the plays run, which ranks 6th in the NFL. On the surface, the blitz percentage of plays defended does not reveal how significant these pressures have been in any down and yardage situation. the number and percentage of quarterback hurries, quarterback hits, and sacks illustrate the effectiveness of the blitz schemes accurately.
On the season, the Chiefs defense ranks 9th with 18 quarterback hurries, defined as the pressure forcing the quarterback to throw the ball and avoid a sack. They rank 9th-best, posting an 11.7% quarterback hurry percentage meaning that the opposing quarterback has had to throw the ball to avoid a sack on 11.7% of the plays defended. The pressure has generated 14 quarterback hits or 10.8% of the defended plays and a 7th-best ranking.
he number of sacks by a defense has defined them as a unit for decades. The Chiefs rank 5th in the NFL recording 12 sacks on the season, which is an outstanding amount through four games.
Overall, the combined pressure metrics show the Chiefs have pressured the opponent’s quarterback a total of 44 times or an average of 11 times-per-game and accounts for 29% of all plays defended. The defense has played at a high-level and as a result the explosive offense has been able execute at an even higher level than last season.
The Raiders Defense Will Not Contain the Chiefs Scoring Machine
The Raiders defense has made far too many mistakes in coverage, gap assignments, and pre-snap mental mistakes that has led to losses. The Raider rank 26th in the NFL allowing an average of 6.2 yards-per-play and 24th in scoring defense allowing 120 points or 30 points-per-game on the season. Defensive performance measures this poor will be fully exploited by a creative offensive genius like Chiefs head coach Andy Reid.
Defenses Must Pick Their Poison
Opposing defenses have chosen not to get beat deep by the vertical threats of Tyreek Hill. Sammy Watkins and others. This strategy has been a success if your goal is not to give up big play passing touchdowns. The system has been highly ineffective because Mahomes simply checks down to shorter pass routes underneath the linebacker coverage and routes that have a high percentage of being completed. As a result, the Chiefs rank second in the NFL, averaging seven plays-per-drive, averaging 41.6 yards-per-drive, and scoring on 51.3% of their drives.
Las Vegas Raiders vs. Kansas City Chiefs Pick:
The machine learning models project that the Chiefs will score at least 28 points and gain a minimum of 400 total offensive yards. In past games in which the Chiefs under head coach Andy Reid have met or exceeded these performance measures, have earned an outstanding 23-8 SU record for 74.2% wins and a 20-9-2 ATS record good for 69% winning bets. If they achieved these performance measures in a home game, they have earned a 13-1 SU record for 93% wins and an 11-3 ATS record for 79% winning bets that covered the spread by an average of 10 points.
In games played on the roads in which the Raiders allowed 28 or more points and allowed 400 or more offensive yards, they have gone to a terrible 6-30 SU record for 17% wins and a 10-26 ATS record for 28% winning bets that failed to cover the spread by an average of 11.5 points.
Take the Kansas City Chiefs minus the points and expect a 20-point margin of victory.