‘Nigerian Nightmare’ Chiefs great Christian Okoye loved pounding AFC West-rival Raiders

His response should bring a smile to the face of any Chiefs fan from the last 50-plus years.

Christian Okoye smiled and said, “the Raiders” when asked who his favorite opponent was in his career with the Chiefs. Asked why, he said, “Because we beat them all the time.” And then he laughed.

Okoye retired as the Chiefs’ all-time leading rusher after the 1992 season with 4,897 yards. He’s still fourth on the list behind Jamaal Charles, Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson.

Against the Raiders, he rushed for 481 yards in 11 games, second only to his output against the Seattle Seahawks (718 yards in 11 games), who were in the Chiefs’ division when Okoye was wearing the red and gold.

It was just more fun to run over the Raiders.

“They always talked, talked, talked,” he said. “They always thought they were the No. 1 team in the league, so we always had fun beating them.”

At 6-foot-1, 260 pounds, the “Nigerian Nightmare” was the big, powerful back featured in head coach Marty Schottenheimer’s offense. Okoye arrived two seasons before Schottenheimer, but he had his best season for the head coach, when he led the NFL with 1,480 yards on the ground in 1989.

“In those days, football was all about having great running backs,” Okoye said. “The league ran the football most of the time. The NFL is now all about the passing game. I’m amazed that they can run 85 plays in a game. If we ran 55 or 60 plays, that was a lot. I’m glad the game is changing to a game where guys can survive. When I played it was a gladiator sport.”

Just like having a favorite team to run against, Okoye quickly mentioned a player who was the toughest opponent he faced, and it wasn’t who you might think.

“We went to Chicago to play the Bears,” he said. “It was very cold. It was third and 1 and the play was called for me to go to my left. I had everything in my mind to make that first down. Richard Dent came charging at me, and we both kind of bounced back. I got the first down, but we practically knocked each other out.”

In 1990, Okoye was famously stopped while running through the hole by Denver’s Steve Atwater. The game was on Monday Night Football, so the moment got a lot of attention, but Okoye said it wasn’t that big of a deal.

“He was a good football player,” he said, “but that one play that everybody talks about, he just caught me off-guard. I had my head down, so I didn’t expect the hit. Everybody makes a big deal about it, but it was just a football play.

“The person on the Broncos’ defense that we always accounted for was Dennis Smith. He would fill in the gaps more often than Steve Atwater did. That one play raised Atwater’s profile.”

Okoye’s career was cut short by knee injuries, but he said it wasn’t hard to walk away from the game. The main reason was that he really didn’t like football until late in his career. He grew up in Nigeria playing soccer but recognized that he didn’t have the build for that game. He was a sprinter with 4.4 speed in the 40, but when the Nigerian Olympic track team didn’t name him to its roster in 1984, he decided to give football a try.

“I stayed with football because my coaches and friends said I was good at it,” he said. “Football wasn’t in my culture growing up, so it didn’t hit me as hard as it would someone who played it at an early age. I was actually happy to leave.”

Since retiring, he’s been running the Christian Okoye Foundation, as well as some private ventures. The foundation helps his native Nigeria by hosting sports clinics for underprivileged kids.

And he follows the Chiefs closely, attending several games each year. He’s quite impressed with the current Chiefs. He says he would have been able to play in Andy Reid’s offense.

“I think I would be successful,” he said. “When I played, they didn’t throw the ball to the backs much. But I could catch the ball, and as big as I was, I would have been hard to bring down.

“I would have loved to play in this offense.”

Especially against the Raiders.

David Smale is a freelance writer and author of 22 books on sports history. One of his recent books, The Keys to the Kingdom, is on the entire history of the Chiefs franchise. It is available at www.davidsmalebooks.com. He also is the host of “Sports Connections,” available wherever podcasts are found.

This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 10:24 AM with the headline "‘Nigerian Nightmare’ Chiefs great Christian Okoye loved pounding AFC West-rival Raiders."