Written by Frank Schwab at YahooSports.com
Khalil Mack didn’t make a lot of noise early in the season. The Oakland Raiders were winning but Mack wasn’t having the kind of season everyone expected from him.
He’s making up for it lately.
Mack is on a tear, and made another important and impossibly athletic play on Sunday. With the Buffalo Bills driving in the fourth quarter, trailing 38-24, Tyrod Taylor dropped back to pass. Mack beat right tackle Jordan Mills easily with an inside move, but Taylor was rolling to his left, away from Mack. No problem.
Mack turned on his speed, went airborne, and in one motion sacked Taylor, stripped the ball and recovered the fumble when it landed in his lap. Game over.
The Raiders look a lot more dominant than they did early in the season, when they were winning a lot of razor-thin games. Oakland started slow on Sunday, then scored 29 unanswered points against a solid Bills team and won 38-24. The Raiders have looked even better lately as Mack has made a case to be defensive player of the year.
Mack has at least one sack in seven straight games and 10 total this season, which is impressive when you consider he had just one through the first five games.
Can Mack rebound from a slow start and win defensive player of the year?
“I’m pushing,” Mack told Steve Wyche of NFL Network about the DPOY possibility.
If Mack can continue on this roll, the Raiders’ chances of a long playoff run get even better. Think Von Miller and the 2015 Denver Broncos. Last week Mack had an interception return for a touchdown and a strip sack of Cam Newton at the end of a 35-32 win. He can turn around games by himself with his play-making ability, on the same level as Miller and … maybe that’s it. Let’s just say it’s a short list.
The Raiders still have a tough road down the stretch. They play Thursday at the Kansas City Chiefs, and because Kansas City won the first meeting, the Chiefs would take over first place in the AFC West via tiebreaker if they win. There’s no reason to doubt if the Raiders are legit at 10-2, but they happen to play in the most competitive division in football. The Broncos and Chiefs are legit too.
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