Antonio Pierce’s Raiders end losing skid vs. Chiefs ‘by any means necessary'

Dismantling a division rival 63-21 is an arduous act to follow.

Snapping a six-game losing streak against the defending Super Bowl champions and preventing them from clinching their eighth consecutive AFC West title most certainly qualifies for a tremendous encore, though.

That's exactly what interim head coach Antonio Pierce's Las Vegas Raiders did on Christmas, keeping their faint playoff hopes alive and furthering Pierce's candidacy for a full-time spot as the Silver and Black downed the Kansas City Chiefs, 20-14, on Monday.

"I think the one thing everybody is seeing with this Raider team," said Pierce, who guided the Raiders to their first Christmas win in three tries, "is a group that's playing together, having fun with one another, loving one another, playing with a bigger purpose, a will to win, a fight to win and not ever giving up."

History leans to Monday's outcome being rather improbable considering the Chiefs' dominance of the rivalry, but so too did the way the game played out. The Raiders offense was shut out of the end zone, but they became the first team since the 2012 Chicago Bears to score multiple defensive TDs in consecutive games, per NFL Research. That aided mightily in Las Vegas becoming the first team since the 2000 Cincinnati Bengals to win a game after completing zero passes after the first quarter. Despite quarterback Aidan O'Connell going 9 of 21 for 62 yards in the game, the Raiders became the first team to start a rookie signal-caller and defeat Patrick Mahomes.

"That was one of our mantras," Pierce said, "by any means necessary. We knew it was going to be a gritty game. It wasn't going to be a high-score (game), we didn't want it to be a high-scoring game."

As aforementioned, Las Vegas' win ended