Antonio Pierce offers blunt assessment of Chiefs-Raiders: ‘Best team in football against the worst’

The Las Vegas Raiders head to Arrowhead Stadium this week for a Black Friday matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs. Ahead of the game, Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce didn’t mince words about the narrative they’re facing heading into their AFC West showdown.

The Raiders have been amongst the worst teams in the NFL this season, currently sitting at 2-9, tied with the New York Giants and Jacksonville Jaguars for the worst record in the league.

With that in mind, Pierce was rather realistic about the Raiders’ chances against the 10-1 Chiefs during his Wednesday press conference. The second-year head coach called for his team to “change the narrative” about the matchup.

“Let’s call a spade a spade,” Pierce told reporters. “Best team in football against the worst team in football. Let’s change the narrative. Let’s go out there and make it a dogfight. Let’s make it ugly, let’s make it scrappy. It’s Black Friday, let’s create a little chaos and get back to Raider football and have some personality and let it loose.”

Pierce isn’t exactly wrong in his assessment. Of the 2-9 teams, the Raiders are tied for the worst point differential with the Jaguars, being outscored by 108 points by their opponents on the year.

Regardless, this probably isn’t the kind of framing that Amazon’s Prime Video, who is broadcasting the game, was hoping for. Especially considering last year’s Black Friday game on Prime brought in an average of 9.61 million viewers, well below their average broadcast last season.

The Chiefs have consistently brought in the highest ratings of any team this season, highlighted by their Week 11 matchup with the Buffalo Bills on CBS drawing the highest viewership of any game this year with 31.2 million viewers. So the chances are good this game will outdraw last year’s Jets-Dolphins Black Friday matchup.

[Ari Meirov on X]