HomeNCAAFPatrick Mahomes faces Raiders for first time after Kermit...

Patrick Mahomes faces Raiders for first time after Kermit the Frog puppet


The Las Vegas Raiders hate the Kansas City Chiefs. The Raiders also, for the most part, have a terrible time when they play the Chiefs.

Mark Davis’s team is 4-17 in its last 21 games against the defending two-time Super Bowl champions. That’s left Las Vegas in need of motivation to rise up and derail their AFC West rival. When they beat Kansas City 40-32 in Missouri in 2020, then-coach Jon Gruden took a post-game victory lap around Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs responded with six straight wins.

Last winter, the Raiders snapped that win streak with a 20-14 victory in one of the ugliest games of 2023. Las Vegas didn’t revel too hard after that win; instead, the team saved its trash talk for the offseason. And aimed it right at two-time MVP Patrick Mahomes.

Dressing up a Kermit the Frog puppet like Mahomes, then having it say “I’m a [expletive]” is certainly a choice. The Raiders wanted Kansas City’s attention. They got it.

Week 8 marks the first Chiefs-Raiders game since the offseason. It pits the league’s last undefeated team against a 2-5 squad and the league’s fourth-worst scoring defense. Mahomes has had the worst season of his career, efficiency-wise, thanks to a depleted receiving corps. Now he gets to face a just-OK passing defense with a chip on his shoulder.

Mahomes’s opportunity to “get it handled” begins at 4:25 ET Sunday.