McDaniels defends “aggressive” two-point call in defeat to Chiefs

The Las Vegas Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs headlined Monday Night Football this week and boy, did they give us a show. With the Raiders up 17-0 in the first quarter, the Chiefs came back to get four touchdowns, all scored by Travis Kelce, to eventually bring the game to 30-29 with the Chiefs in the lead. That’s when the critical decision-making really came into play.

When Kelce scored his final touchdown for the Chiefs, that put the score at 30-23. The Chiefs decided to go for two, a risk that didn’t pay off in that moment as they failed to get the conversion. If the Raiders scored a touchdown and got the extra point, it would be a tie game. Well, the Raiders did get down into the end zone on a 48-yard touchdown catch by Davante Adams. With 4:29 left in the game, kicking an extra point would have tied it up and potentially sent it into overtime. But Raiders coach Josh McDaniels decided to go for two.

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“I felt like in that situation, they had a lot of momentum offensively in the second half, and we had a chance. We had a fair fight at it,” said McDaniels. “And then maybe put a little extra pressure on them when they had the ball. Nothing more, nothing less. Just trying to be aggressive, trying to win the game.”

The two-point attempt failed as running back Josh Jacobs got stuffed at the goal line. The Raiders stayed down, 30-29. They were able to stop the Chiefs offense getting anywhere on the next drive and had an opportunity on offense again with 2:29 left in the game. But a third-down pass to Adams was ruled incomplete when he failed to get both feet in bounds. If it had been complete, they would have been within field goal range and would have had another chance to win it, but instead, they were held to 4th and 1. They went for it, but Derek Carr threw an incomplete pass to give the Chiefs the ball back on downs. The Chiefs won it by a point....a point the Raiders would have had if they had not gone for two and failed.

And so, the game came down to that one, risky, “aggressive” call by McDaniels. Though it’s easy to criticize, it made some sense to try and take back the lead there and then stop the Chiefs offense. Carr was in favor of going for two as well.

“Before that drive, I went to Josh [McDaniels] and I was like…he’s like, ‘hey, we’re going to score, we’ll have a decision to make,’” said Carr. “I said, ‘let’s go for two. I’m all on board’. I knew what he was saying: ‘decision-making’. That’s what he was talking about.”

“I said it before we even took the field, on that drive. So when we scored, I was excited, but I was already telling people, ‘hey, two!’, and then I looked at Josh and he said it in my headset. I think we love being aggressive, especially as players.”

Unfortunately, being aggressive did not pay off for the Raiders this time, as they fell to 1-4 on the season and last in the AFC West. Meanwhile, the Chiefs advanced to 4-1 and are sitting at number one in the AFC West. The Raiders will look to bounce back when they play the Texans this Sunday.