Raiders See Kansas City in Distance : Pro football: Delayed trip home from Seattle puts team behind in preparation for Saturday’s game against Chiefs.

This may be a short week for the Raiders. But it began with one long night.

Faced with playing the Kansas City Chiefs in six days with perhaps their season on the line, the Raiders first had to endure a six-hour journey home from Seattle, normally a 2 1/2-hour plane trip at most.

That left them no time to savor Sunday night’s narrow escape from the Kingdome, where Seahawk kicker John Kasay’s potential game-winning field goal from 43 yards out in the closing seconds curved wide right by about the width of the football, giving the Raiders a 17-16 victory.

The Raiders were given Monday off, presumably to catch up on their sleep. They will go back to work today, normally a day off, to prepare for the Chiefs, who have beaten the Raiders in nine of their last 10 meetings, playoffs included. The Chiefs won in Kansas City earlier this season, 13-3.

There was no time off, though, for Raider Coach Art Shell, who still hadn’t made it home by Monday afternoon.

The team’s charter jet took off from Seattle about 11:30 Sunday night, but fog at Los Angeles International Airport diverted the flight to Ontario. By the time the Raiders were bused back to LAX and then drove their own cars home, it was after 5 a.m.

Shell went directly to the team’s El Segundo headquarters where, bleary-eyed, he watched the Seahawk game film before turning his attention to the Chiefs.

“I quickly looked at the film, put it away and started on Kansas City,” Shell said. “The emphasis has to be on Kansas City.”

Still, the performance of his offensive line Sunday night had to bring a smile to Shell’s weary face.

Being a former offensive lineman, Shell knows all too well the problems linemen face in a noisy arena like the Kingdome, where hearing your quarterback call signals is simply not possible sometimes.

But at least the lineman knows what he is supposed to do, even if he can’t hear just when he is supposed to do it. Sunday night, Kevin Gogan didn’t even have that advantage.

When left tackle Gerald Perry was knocked out of the game because of a concussion and his replacement, Robert Jenkins, was ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct, Gogan, the starting right guard, was moved to right tackle, a position he hadn’t played in five years.

Veteran Max Montoya went in at right guard and Greg Skrepenak was moved from right to left tackle.

The Raiders gave up five sacks, but, with Hostetler taking a shorter drop from center, the line gave him the time to throw the game-winning touchdown pass to Tim Brown on a play covering 77 yards. And, led by Harvey Williams’ 93 rushing yards, the Raiders were able to gain 116 yards on the ground.

“Under the circumstances, I thought they performed admirably,” Shell said. “Especially Gogan, having not played the position or even practiced. We knew he was an emergency tackle, but we didn’t figure the emergency would come that fast.”

Gogan might not have come to the Kingdome prepared to play tackle, but, as a Seattle resident in the off-season, he knows all about the Kingdome and came prepared for the noise.

He had earplugs.

Earplugs to better hear your quarterback? Really, insisted Gogan.

“The earplugs (drown out) the crowd and I was able to hear Hoss real good,” he said.

Originally, Shell had planned to put Gogan in on the left side, but the coach decided he would at least give Gogan the opportunity to stay on the side he is more familiar with, if not the position. Was that at Gogan’s urging?

“I didn’t tell him nothing,” the 6-foot-7, 315-pound Gogan said with a laugh. “He’s the head coach. But we (the offensive line) were all talking and we got our communication downpretty good.”

The Raiders hope things can return to normal this week with everybody back in place.

Perry, who had not suffered a concussion before, hopes to be back in the lineup. He was ready to go back in Sunday, but was told by doctors to forget it.

That apparently was good advice, considering that Perry seemed to have forgotten just about everything that happened Sunday night.

Who hit him in the head to cause the concussion?

“I have no idea,” Perry said.

What did he think when Jenkins was ejected?

Perry didn’t recall that either.

“I remember somewhat of a fight but I’m not sure I remember that much of the game,” hesaid. “It was a strange feeling.”

Did he recall watching Kasay’s nerve-racking final kick?

“Believe me, that I remember,” Perry said.

It was a game worth remembering for the Raiders. And a night worth forgetting.