Kelly said he was driven back to his car Sunday night along with some teammates at the team hotel; he was expecting a driver for transportation, and when it wasn't there, decided to drive home himself.

"I just take it as a lesson learned what not to do," Kelly said. "I doubt if it will ever happen again. I just probably didn't make the right decision. I just probably should have left my car where it was."

--Linebacker Thomas Howard had one of his best games as a Raider with seven tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss, a quarterback hurry, a forced fumble and two passes defensed.

Even better, it came in Arrowhead Stadium, the place where his father played as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs.

"I have a lot of bragging rights back home," Howard said. "He may have beaten me in dominoes last week but we beat his Chiefs so we're good."

--Tackle Mario Henderson, who never mounted a challenge to be the starter at right tackle as the Raiders had hoped, contributed to the Raiders' 300-yard rushing effort against the Chiefs, did not commit a penalty and held up well in pass protection in the limited amount of times Oakland threw the ball.

Kiffin had jokingly called Henderson "Super Mario" during training camp, noting that the second-year tackle wasn't aggressive enough and lacked a passion for football.

After the game, Henderson seemed almost embarrassed by the attention from reporters, as teammates teased him for becoming a sudden star.

"I had the whole team behind me," Henderson said. "That gave me a lot of confidence."

Russell, who relied on Henderson to protect his blind side, reassured him before kickoff.

"I just told him, Why aren't you blitzing more.' A Ryan won't even blitz in a max protection and all close receivers. Nor will anyone else. Nobody else will."

Sure enough, blitzers came early and often against the Chiefs. Sacks came from five different players, including linebackers Kirk Morrison and Thomas Howard.

Howard was on quarterback Damon Huard before he could react.

"I timed it up pretty good and got in there good," Howard said. "It was exciting because Rob had talked about it in practice, we worked on it, you've got to time it up right, and I did."

--Running back Justin Fargas earned the nickname "crash test dummy" while at USC because of his penchant for violent collisions. He's had his share bruises big and small, but usually winds up ready to play on game day.

Which is why it seemed strange for Fargas to be sidelined while running a pass pattern and being hit by no one.

Against the Chiefs, Fargas, not a particularly adept receiver, was split wide to the right in a five-receiver set with an empty backfield. Russell saw single coverage and even waved at Fargas to take off.

About 10 yards into his pattern, Fargas pulled up and went down with a groin strain. He's unlikely to face Buffalo, and San Diego is no lock the following week.

"It just kind of happened out of nowhere," Fargas said. "I was thinking about all the hits I take, then I'm running by myself and get hurt. It's part of the game, I guess. It happens like that sometimes. I've just got to bounce back."

BY THE NUMBERS: 34,218 -- Amount of travel miles the Raiders will accumulate this year, second to Seattle in the NFL. Aside from Buffalo, the Raiders play non-division games in New Orleans, Miami and Tampa Bay.

QUOTE TO NOTE: "Everybody's got issues and problems, I don't care where they are. We just may have different ones than somewhere else. Really, after this 20 minutes that we're in here and you guys ask all these questions, I really don't deal with this after that very much." -- Raiders coach Lane Kiffin, on whether the speculation on his job status affects his ability to do his job.