Officially, Season Off to Rocky Start

Slowly, game by game, the Oakland Raiders are falling in love with Arrowhead Stadium.

“It’s a special place to come here and play,” receiver Tim Brown said Sunday, basking in the afterglow of a 27-24 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. “This is probably the best venue in the league. It’s unbelievable. We caught a great day weather-wise. Just a great place.”

Brown never uttered those words from 1989 through ‘98, when his team lost 11 consecutive road games to the Chiefs--including one in the playoffs. But times have changed since quarterback Rich Gannon switched sides, coming to the Raiders from Kansas City in 1999.

Gannon, who hasn’t lost to his former team at Arrowhead, won Sunday’s season opener with a do-or-die drive that ended with a 31-yard field goal by Sebastian Janikowski with 15 seconds to play.

The Raider victory spoiled the debut of Chief Coach Dick Vermeil and his former St. Louis quarterback, Trent Green, who accounted for two fumbles and an interception.

“I expected to be a little better on offense, but I knew we would have some problems in certain areas,” Vermeil said.

The Chiefs, who led for three quarters before falling behind in the fourth, forged a tie at 24 with 1:21 to play, when Green found rookie Snoop Minnis on a 30-yard touchdown pass.

The Raiders answered with a five-play drive that lasted 1:06 and covered 36 yards, most of which came on a sideline pass to Brown for a gain of 33.

“I’d have to say that was the best pass of the game for me,” Gannon said. “I was just trying to put it in a spot where he could catch it. We knew they were in bump-and-run coverage, so I just tried to lay it out where he could get underneath it.”

Although the Raiders talked all week about establishing the run, they went to the pass early and often. Gannon threw for 341 yards, connecting eight times each with Brown and Jerry Rice.

Green had trouble finding his groove--and his wide receivers. Aside from the touchdown pass to Minnis, tight ends and running backs caught all the passes. Well, not all the passes. Green’s first regular-season completion as a Chief was to himself, after the ball was batted at the line of scrimmage. His two fumbles were the result of botched exchanges with rookie center Brian Waters.

“It’s a thing where you could point fingers and blame a number of different things,” Green said of the fumbles. “We can’t have fumbled snaps.”

The Raiders also had a costly turnover. Kansas City’s defense scored four plays into Oakland’s opening drive, when cornerback Eric Warfield wrenched a pass away from Rice and ran 51 yards for a touchdown.

For a while, the only things that kept the Raiders in the game were field goals by Janikowski, who made kicks from 43, 42, 36 and 31 yards.

Oakland’s first touchdown came late in the third quarter when Brown scored on a 33-yard reception. Gannon scrambled for the conversion, trimming the deficit to 17-14.

Janikowski made the game-tying field goal with 9:35 to play. Fullback Jon Ritchie put the Raiders on top for the first time with 3:19 remaining by catching a pass in the flat and sprinting 15 yards for the score.

Said Ritchie: “It was just me and 15 yards of grass.”

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Reversal of Fortune

After going 0-11 at Arrowhead Stadium from 1989 to 1998, the Raiders have won their last three games there since 1999:

JAN. 2, 2000

* Joe Nedney kicked two late field goals, one tying the score at 38 with under a minute to play and another to win it, 41-38, in overtime.

OCT. 15, 2000

* Sebastian Janikowski kicked a 43-yard field goal with 25 seconds to play, giving the Raiders a 20-17 victory.

SEPT. 9, 2001

* Janikowski followed David Dunn’s 40-yard kickoff return with a 31-yard field goal to give the Raiders a 27-24 victory in the closing seconds.

Roy Jurgens