Andy Reid trolling the Silver & Black is nothing new.
The Kansas City Chiefs head coach and primary offensive play caller makes no bones about making a mockery of the Las Vegas Raiders defense during his
tenure. Remember the “Ring Around the Rosie” play Reid deployed just two seasons ago?
Kansas City had a spinning huddle on that particular play, then broke out of it to run a touchdown-scoring trick play. A holding call wiped out the score, however, on the very next play, Reid dialed up a traditional end around that resulted in a touchdown anyway.
Would Reid’s trolling extend to his Chiefs losing on purpose to cost the Raiders the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft?
I don’t think so. And it’s tomfoolery to even suggest it.
First and foremost — and this revelation likely arrived after Hondo Carpenter’s notion above — the lowest the Raiders can drop in the draft is the No. 2 overall selection.
Second, this Sunday’s matchup in Allegiant Stadium may likely be tight end Travis Kelce’s final game.
And third, despite being eliminated from the postseason and having 10-straight playoff appearances and nine-straight division champions streaks snapped, Reid is still a prideful coach and nothing would be more pleasing than his depleted team defeating the haphazard Raiders — emphatically.
“I’d like to have fun playing football, practice with a lot of energy, get ready for a game. We’re playing Kansas City. They won the freaking division for 10 years straight or whatever it is. It’ll be fun to play them. Fun to go against Andy , to me. And so, there’s no reason for us to think about anything other than playing ball,” Raiders head coach Pete Carroll said during his media availability on Monday when asked on what he wants to see from his football team this last week. “And so, from the locker room, that’s what I said to them afterward, that we got one week to do something special. Let’s make sure that we do everything we can to create that, and we’ll see what happens.”
Vegas Two Step
The Atlanta Falcons’ 27-24 upset victory over the Los Angeles Rams this past Monday night, triggered a shift in the strength of schedule that the NFL uses as tiebreakers when it comes to draft positioning. Thanks to Atlanta’s win, the Raiders cannot drop any lower than the No. 2 overall selection. This is due to the fact that the New York Jets cannot earn a tiebreaker over the Raiders or New York Giants if the trio of teams all finished 3-14 overall.
The presumed course of action this offseason for Las Vegas is to use it’s Top 2 selection on a quarterback prospect. While both Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza and Oregon’s Dante Moore are the early favorites to be the top signal callers from the collegiate landscape, neither have officially declared for the draft. Prospects have until mid-January to declare.
With that in mind, it’s difficult to see Reid even entertaining a tank of their own as the Raiders dropping one spot in the draft order isn’t a backbreaker.
Plus, the Silver & Black can potentially secure the No. 1 pick before the Sunday clash with the Chiefs:
Gone With A Win?
At 36 years old, Kelce is long in the tooth for an NFL tight end. While he remains quite undecided on his NFL future, retirement is on the horizon at some point. And that horizon could be in view for the third-round pick (63rd overall) in the 2013 NFL Draft.
Kelce expects to play in the season finale and while his season output thus far (73 catches for 839 yards and five touchdowns) is below the production he put up from 2016 to 2022 (675 catches, 8,607 yards, 59 touchdowns), the Cincinnati product is still a viable pass catcher.
It’s been a disappointing 2025 campaign for the Chiefs and nothing would be better than snapping a five-game losing streak and sending Kelce potentially off into the sunset with one last AFC West victory under his belt.
Reid and React
While Reid is a master troller, he’s also quite the vindictive head coach.
Remember when Jon Gruden’s Raiders took a victory lap around Arrowhead enroute to the airport after a 40-32 win in 2020?
“They won the game, so they can do anything they want to do,” Reid said of the stunt. “That’s not our style.”
The following season, in a blowout 48-9 win against the Raiders, the PA system played “Wheels On The Bus” as the Silver & Black left the field.
Combine that with making a mockery of the Raiders’ defense in 2023, purposefully losing to “steal” the No. 1 pick loses its luster. And with a “freefall” in draft position simply being a drop to the second-overall pick, the notion becomes even more asinine.
Also consider this: The Giants found out how hard it is to out-tank the Raiders.
A depleted Giants team sliced through the Raiders like a hot knife through butter last weekend in a 34-10 win. Las Vegas’ run game that had a resurgent performance two weeks ago against the Houston Texans was stymied for much of the matchup against New York. According to Carroll, that was due to a big presence in the Giants’ interior.
“Yeah, there’s a guy named Dexter Lawrence that had a hell of a game against us yesterday,” Carroll noted. “He really dictated what was going on inside, and they’ve got two terrific edge guys. Those guys, and I know Houston does too, but in this matchup, it seemed like their inside guys were more of a factor than the Houston guys were. And we lost (Dylan) Parham right off the bat. He was sick coming off pregame, and so (Atonio) Mafi jumped in, had to play, and Caleb (Rogers) had to go up against him. And they were tough matchups.”
The Raiders get another mountainous task in blocking Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones who had a sack and two quarterback hits in the Chiefs’ 31-0 blanking of the Silver & Black back on October 19.
Even with a roster held together by bubble gum and tape, Reid’s coaching acumen alone trumps Carroll’s. And that’ll be the ultimate different on Sunday.
