NFL preview: Kansas City Chiefs face Oakland Raiders live on Sky Sports

It looks like as big a mismatch as you can find in the NFL this season when the streaking Kansas City Chiefs travel to California to face an AFC West rival Oakland Raiders side still looking for their first win of the season.

They may be on a short week but the Chiefs will be itching to get onto the field on Thursday knowing a win would put them clear at the top of the division and put the pressure on the Denver Broncos who face Miami on Sunday.

The Raiders are in all kinds of trouble, they haven’t won for a year and have gone a full season’s worth of 16 games without a victory, which is the longest current losing streak in the NFL currently and a team worst since the 19060s.

Oakland hardly have an advantage playing at home, if anything their better performances have come on the road, and the Chiefs will be full of confidence of getting the win and then having ten days to prepare for a showdown with the Broncos.

Star man

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Jamaal Charles led the Chiefs to victory against defending Super Bowl champions Seattle last week, gaining a season-best 159 yards and his rushing prowess will again lead the way. Oakland gives up 129 yards a game rushing and teams run on them just over 50 percent of the time – more than any other team in the league – for a reason.

Charles has 62 more yards than Oakland’s entire rushing output, and has seven of his eight rushing touchdowns in his last in the last five games of their winning run. The Chiefs lead the league with 16 rushing touchdowns and with Charles given plenty of action in their offence he could again have a huge game.

Oakland offence

The more you look at the number the more they just don’t stack up to anything other than a big win for the Chiefs. Oakland are awful running the ball, and the Chiefs haven’t allowed a rushing score all season.

The Raiders are the only team in the league to average under 300-yards of total offence a game, and the can only muster 15 points per contest. Rookie Derek Carr has shown decent spells but has failed to reach 200 yards in his last three – the Chiefs have the best pass defence in the NFL and haven’t allowed more than 20 points in their last five wins.

Where’s the wideouts?

Chiefs QB Alex Smith has yet to find any of his wide receivers with a touchdown pass this season, and the bizarre stat goes way back to week 14 of last season since a wide receiver for the Chiefs found the end zone.

Travis Kelce is providing a great target for Smith in the red zone, but if there was any game to snap the strange run of non-scoring wideouts it would be in a match-up against the Raiders, Smith threw five TD passes and no picks in Oakland last year, and the Raiders are without cornerbacks TJ Carrie and Carlos Rodgers for the game.

Numbers game

The Chiefs need to be careful not to look beyond Oakland with Denver on the horizon, and bizarrely the team have won just one of four contests with teams sitting on 0-10 in their history. Apart from that it’s all in favour of a team that’s won seven of eight and five on the spin.

It’s not that Oakland have lost all these games, it’s that they’ve not really been too close – they’ve only held one second half lead this season, and in all of their 16 straight defeats combined they’ve only snapped the ball for seven plays when holding a second half lead.

What they said

"There's a lot for every quarterback to get ready for, especially with a talented defense like Kansas City has. It just puts more on your plate and you just knock it out in the time that we do have," Oakland QB Derek Carr.

“Anytime you play this game, there’s a physical element. It’s just a matter of the guys getting themselves back and being able to be physically ready to play. The mental part, they handle it and they get that part done. You’re back to back in games here in four days. That’s a tough deal,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid.